BEIJING - Michael Phelps finally seems to be grasping what it all means.
Maybe it started to sink in when the president showed up at the Water Cube and came back for an encore. Maybe he got a better idea when all those NBA superstars - Kobe Bryant and LeBron James among them - actually led the cheers for him. Maybe it was those relentless text messages from friends back home.
Maybe he actually listened when the race announcer at the pool said in a deep, authoritative voice:
"Michael Phelps, greatest Olympian ever."
The head dipped. The shoulders twitched. The slightest of smiles creased his lips.
"Growing up, I always wanted to be an Olympian," Phelps said later. "I just kept thinking, 'Wow, greatest Olympian of all time.' It's a pretty cool title."
After winning five gold medals and setting five world records over the course of four days, Phelps actually got a bit of a respite today at the Beijing Games; maybe he'll even take a minute or two to reflect. He merely had the semifinals of the 200-meter individual medley in the morning, followed by the preliminaries of the 100 butterfly in the evening.
By Phelps's standards, a rather light day.
Just look what he did yesterday: In the span of an hour, he set a world record in the 200-meter butterfly - even though a faulty pair of goggles filled with water during the race - and then came back to lead the first 800 freestyle relay to crack the seven-minute barrier.
Those were the 10th and 11th gold medals of Phelps's career, leaving Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis, & Co. in the dust. And he's still aiming to win three more before he leaves China, which would take down the record he really wants: Spitz's seven-gold performance from 36 years ago.
"I think he's undisputedly the greatest swimmer of all time," longtime Italian coach Alberto Castagnetti said. "He's stratospheric, in technical terms and in terms of mental preparation. I've never seen anyone like him."
Castagnetti should know. He raced against Spitz at the Munich Games.
"Spitz was much more limited," he said. "He had two races that were similar, freestyle and butterfly, and he had a team behind him for the relays in which even I could have won."
These are the finals Phelps has left:
Tomorrow, 200 individual medley: Teammate and fellow hip-hop aficionado Ryan Lochte certainly makes this a potential stumbling block, considering he put up the third-fastest time in history at the US trials last month. Then again, Phelps set a world record in that same race and will benefit from Lochte trying to pull off a tough double, also racing in the 200 backstroke on the same morning.
