Published: August 17, 2008 06:32 pm         

Mark Maynard: Leaving us breathless in Beijing 8/15/08

The Beijing Olympics might as well be called the Michael Phelps Olympics.

Is there any doubt he’s the face of these Games? All hail the greatest Olympian ever. Period.

All around the country, schedules are being set to make sure we’re around a television any time Phelps gets near the water. We have developed a fascination — maybe even an infatuation — with the Golden Boy.

We were able to catch our breath on Wednesday but Phelps resumed the chase for eight golds on Thursday. There are also finals on Friday and Saturday. We’ll all be watching because Michael Phelps has become a rock star, a Tiger Woods in Speedos.

Images of Phelps and his family will be what we take away from the 2008 Olympics.

How many of us were cheering simultaneously when the 4x100 relay team, of which Phelps was a member, won the gold medal in come-from-behind fashion on Sunday night in one of the greatest U.S. moments in Olympic history? The images of Phelps and his relay mates screaming and yelling after the improbable victory were breathtaking theater.

Phelps’ quest for eight gold medals has made for some dramatic must-see TV this week. NBC has to be smiling along the way. They should give Phelps part of their payday. He’s been the Star of Stars and, without question, the greatest international athlete ever. Nobody has dominated a sport like he has done.

We know nearly everything about Phelps and his family, how he and his two older sisters were raised by his mother, Debbie, a two-time Maryland teacher of the year. Not much has been said about his father, Fred Phelps, a former Fairmont State football player.

Michael’s mother and father divorced when he was 7, and he had little to do with him since. As a child, Phelps struggled with ADHD. There are no struggles with anything now, especially not when it comes to anything in the pool. I’m not convinced a shark could outswim him.

But we have seen what Phelps eats and how he prepares with his daily regimen, a remarkable and unbelievable schedule in its own right. America has fallen in love with his boyish smile, incredible talent and amazing drive to be the very best.

America loves a winner. Always has, always will. We marveled when Mark Spitz won seven swimming golds in 1972. He knows about the admiration that has come Phelps’ way this week.

The Olympic spirit has always kept America watching. That’s why the network bidding for the Games has always been so fierce. NBC owns the franchise now, and will likely do whatever it can to keep it. They know gold when they see it, too.

They do a nice job of bringing the Games into our living rooms as we watch sports that often we don’t understand, have never played and maybe have never before watched. We stayed riveted to the television during gymnastics even while not understanding a point system that only a mathematician could enjoy.

Our patriotism, the very idea of wanting to root for the good ol’ USA, draws us to the pools, the arenas, even to the beaches for these competitions among the best athletes in the world.

We will cheer for badminton players, beach volleyball competitors and the like as they strive to be the best in the world. These Games are played out for us in splendid fashion. The creative images, like the shots from below the water at the pools or from the ceiling of synchronized diving, has wowed us on a nightly basis.

Next week, the track and field athletes — those who run faster and jump higher — will take center stage. We won’t have Phelps, but we’ll have Tyson Gay, a sprinter from Lexington, and so many others.

But when the competition ends, we will still be left with Michael Phelps — the gold standard for swimmers — and how he made America proud that summer in Beijing.

The greatest Olympian ever? It’s Michael Phelps. There’s no doubt about it.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.

     

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