Schooling knows what he needs to do to win Olympic gold again: Phelps

SINGAPORE – There are more laugh lines around his eyes now, but two years after hanging up his swim trunks, legendary American swimmer Michael Phelps still sports the same lean, muscled physique that won him an unprecedented career record of 23 Olympic gold medals, 26 world championship titles and six world records.

Gone are the pressures of training and competing under the spotlight, and the 32-year-old says he is “at peace” with how everything has turned out.

This after sinking into a post-2008 Beijing Games funk that Phelps described as dark years, before a very public meltdown in 2014 when he was arrested a second time for drink driving. Sinking into depression, he hid in his Baltimore home and contemplated suicide.

Happily retired now, Phelps is enjoying time as a father to his sons, Boomer, who is two, and three-month-old Beckett. Ironically, he has also become an informal counsellor to troubled star athletes such as Australian swimmer Grant Hackett and golfer Tiger Woods.

There is no doubt then that Phelps is in a perfect position to share advice with Singapore’s Joseph Schooling on how to drag himself out of a post-2016 Olympics slump.

While Phelps had dared his vanquisher to dream big after winning the men’s 100m butterfly in Rio de Janeiro, he admitted he was surprised to see the younger Singaporean swimmer struggle in the pool afterwards.

After hitting a career high in Rio, Schooling admitted he took his foot off the pedal, as the 22-year-old was beaten to the 100m butterfly gold by American Caeleb Dressel at the Budapest World Championships.

The University of Texas senior also finished his final campaign at the National Collegiate Athletic Association without winning any individual or relay medals.

“It’s always challenging coming off an Olympic Games, you get to that point, that high, you have a chance to win a gold medal, to represent your country and to accomplish a lifetime dream and goal,” said Phelps, who is in town as a special guest for the inaugural What’s Next in Global Sports conference.

Touching on his experience heading into the 2008 Beijing Games, and the 2012 Olympics in London – where he often skipped training sessions with coach Bob Bowman – Phelps said he chatted with Schooling over lunch at the conference at the Marina Bay Sands on Friday (May 18).

The two men share a unique bond, and a special story and photo that went viral after Schooling’s historic win in Rio. In 2008, a star struck Schooling – then only 13 – met his childhood idol Phelps when the American travelled here for a training stint ahead of the Beijing Games.

Schooling went on to beat Phelps in the pool eight years later, and both swimmers stood on the winner’s podium together with South African Chad le Clos and Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh, who finished joint-second with Phelps.

The two friends were reunited on Friday at the conference, and sat ringside together at the One: Unstoppable Dreams mixed martial arts event later in the evening at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

Phelps added: “It’s challenging to jump right back into it after that, Jo’s (Joseph) talked to me a little bit about some of the struggles that he’s had. I gave him a couple of things to always remember.

“I said to him, ‘you know what you have to do’, he knows what he needs to do to get back to that level.

“He’s been there before, he’s gone through that process, that’s something you never forget, going through that journey of climbing to the top of the mountain.”

With rivals such as seven-time world champion Dressel and le Clos expected to put up strong challenges for gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Phelps also warned that Schooling has much work to do in the pool ahead of the quadrennial Games.

“If he truly wants to get back to where he was in Rio, then it’s obviously going to take a lot of work. It’s going to be harder… that journey is going to be different than his first journey.

“Obviously he’s a super talented kid, he’s a powerful swimmer… he’s got the tools to do whatever he wants. I’m very excited to see what he can do.”

He may have quit competitive sport, but Phelps is still a swimming fan, as he admitted that he will be keeping a close watch on next year’s world championships in Gwangju, and the Tokyo Games.

He added: “It’ll be fun now watching not only Jo but Caeleb also, the two going at it. They’re two years (away from) the Games, it’s getting down to crunch time, where you’ve got to start making all of those final tweaks to make sure you’re 100 per cent ready.”

There was also a sigh of relief from Phelps, as he added with a chuckle: “I’m happy that I’m not in the sport anymore, now it’s just trying to see how long my record (100m fly) will stand. It’s probably only a matter of time before somebody breaks it.”

These days, Phelps is happy to play house with his wife, former Miss California USA Nicole Johnson, and his young sons while focusing on his charity foundation.

He is also an avid golfer and has now taken to cycling competitively, albeit only within a virtual class on an indoor bicycle.

While he readily admitted that fatherhood is tougher than swimming, Phelps is happy to leave his life of competitive swimming in the past.

“It (losing to Schooling) obviously frustrates me because I want to win as many races as I possibly can. But (I’m happy with) how it all panned out: with a three-way tie for second with two competitors that I raced for so many years; then this story of Jo and me meeting each other in 2008, and him being able to accomplish a goal and a dream.

“I never want to leave this sport, I’m not competing anymore, but I’m always going to be around.”