This spring, for the first time in all the years they had worked together, Bob Bowman could not predict what Michael Phelps was going to do. Some days, the coach thought the 23-year-old would keep swimming through 2012. Other days, he felt as if Phelps were on the verge of walking away.
Whatever the decision, though, Bowman felt that the choice had to be Phelps'. So instead of steering him in one direction, he offered just one piece of advice.
"I told him that the only reason he should swim is because he loves to swim," Bowman said. "He shouldn't swim for the money. He shouldn't swim to please me or his mother or [agent Peter Carlisle]. He shouldn't swim because he doesn't have anything else to do. If he didn't have a passion for it, he should quit. Because he has nothing to gain. He's already the best ever."
Phelps had difficulty making up his mind, but around the end of February, he gave himself a deadline. He told Bowman he would let him know in the next few days. And that's why Bowman knew he had to take the swimmer's phone call while he was standing in the lobby of the Kennedy Center on March 1, minutes before he was about to watch a classical music performance by Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin.
"I didn't know what he was going to say," said Bowman, who has coached Phelps since the swimmer was 12 years old. "It was 50-50. I did not have any strong feeling one way or another."
Phelps was definitive with his answer: I'm in. I want to go four more years.
And so the events of this week were set in motion. Though he would prefer the media weren't buzzing quite so loudly about it, Phelps understands that the third and final act of his swimming career begins Friday in Charlotte, N.C., at the UltraSwim. It's just a regular spring meet, and there have been hundreds like it over the course of his life, but Friday will mark the first time the Rodgers Forge native has been in a competitive race since he won eight gold medals in Beijing.
It's also his first real step toward competing in the 2012 Olympic Games in London. And so while he says he has no expectations, there is a flicker of Phelps' competitive fire still burning. He wants to experience the rush of adrenaline that comes with competition.
"I'm not sure what's going to happen," Phelps said Wednesday at the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center. "But I'm really excited just to have the opportunity to race. I haven't had that opportunity until now, and that's the one thing I love about swimming is the racing aspect of it. Whatever happens happens. We'll go back to the drawing board from there."
