• Michael Phelps’s record-setting haul of gold medals at the Beijing Olympics —
eight last week and now 14 for his Olympic career — is enough to make the most
casual sports fan pause. But the quantity — that new magic number of 14 — is
overrated. Considering the number of events, strokes, and relays, an Olympic
swimmer has more chances at earning a medal than any other athlete in the world.
A wrestler or decathlete would have to remain active for more than half a
century(!) merely to get the opportunity for 14 Olympic gold medals.
But here’s what I’ll take with me having watched the greatest swimmer in history
in his sport’s brightest hour: the two golds Phelps earned in less than an hour
on August 13th (Tuesday night, the 12th, here in Memphis). Less than 60 minutes
after Phelps set yet another world record in the 200-meter butterfly, he dove in
the water to lead off his American team in the 800-meter freestyle relay. And
after another four laps of the 50-meter pool, Phelps had a larger lead than he
did at the end of his first race of the evening. (That relay took on an air of
silliness at the end, as American swimmers were swimming the opposite direction
of their seven followers at the turns.)
Swimming is taxing, folks. An exhausting symphony of leg and arm activity, all
the while measuring one’s breath so as not to, well, drown. Michael Phelps
blowing away two fields of Olympic swimmers in less time than it takes to play a
half of American football will be the Herculean achievement of the 2008
Olympics.
• Wondering about the greatest career achievement in Olympics history? It’s Carl
Lewis winning gold in the long jump over four consecutive Olympiads. In an event
that thrives on young, fast-twitch muscles, Lewis was champion for the first
time at age 23 in 1984, and won his last gold medal at Atlanta in 1996 . . . at
the relatively ancient age of 35.
• Call me jaded, but I simply couldn’t get worked up over the age controversy
surrounding the gold-medal-winning Chinese women’s gymnastics team. And here’s
why: we live in an age where mass and strength seem to get in the way of clarity
and decency when it comes to athletic training. The Steroid Era has been
entirely about getting larger, stronger, faster. Along comes the Chinese
gymnastics team and they’re too small to possibly qualify as Olympians? No
75-pound 16-year-old that you know? If you have a problem with the athletic
schools that whisk away Chinese children as part of the country’s Olympic
factory, that’s a fair stance. (But be careful. Check out some of the gymnastics
or tennis academies here stateside.) But if a 13-year-old Chinese girl can
outperform an 18-year-old American on the balance beam, it seems to me we should
acknowledge greatness when we see it.
• Beyond Phelps’s all-too-brief trips through the Water Cube’s pool, my favorite
glimpses from Beijing have come on MSNBC, CNBC, and Oxygen, where “lesser”
sports have been given some airtime. Water polo has to be the most brutal human
endeavor involving a ball and goal. The intensity on the faces of Olympic
wrestlers is much closer to agony than what you’ll see on a gymnast in full
flight. I even enjoyed the half-hour of badminton I watched. To see a pair of
athletes take such a game so seriously is to witness the Olympic ideal . . .
with a shuttlecock.
• On the subject of Phelps, the Memphis Redbirds’ Josh (29 home runs and 93 RBIs
through Sunday) has enjoyed one of the finest seasons in the franchise’s 11-year
history. Local baseball fans owe it to themselves to visit AutoZone park next
week, when the Iowa Cubs come to town (August 25-28). With Memphis clinging to
the possibility of catching Iowa for a division championship, those four games
will be the most meaningful played at Third and Union in eight years. With St.
Louis falling further and further behind the big-league Cubs, Cardinal Nation —
Memphis region — should mobilize in this effort to establish rightful order.
