what price olympic glory?

kinda heartwrenching ... and maddening, at the same time.

AFTER FINDING HIS DREAMS IN THE POOL, MICHAEL PHELPS WOKE UP ON HARD GROUND

BY ERIC ADELSON, ESPN

On the good days, swimming felt like flying. On the good days, he felt the water part with every slice of his outstretched hand, skim over his broad shoulders, swoosh along his flat stomach and disappear beyond his kicking feet. On the good days, he felt no wake, no ripple, no cry from his arms or quit in his legs. The water seemed to miss him completely, then gather behind him and push his opponents until the boy with the long back swam all alone. On the good days, he could swim for miles without a thought entering his mind.

He spent every day in the water. He woke up before dawn to swim, to stare for hours at the wide black line at the bottom of the pool. He followed that line, knowing it would lead him somewhere, hoping it would end in gold. People came from all over the world to see him. Reporters watched him eat breakfast. Corporations offered him millions. Physiologists drew his blood and marveled at the athlete who never tired. All Michael Phelps had to do was swim.

So he swam. He reached, pulled, kicked and breathed, let his mind go blank. The black line led him across the world, to Athens, where he won eight medals in eight days, at age 19. He smiled and talked about his dreams coming true. And then, on the first day of the rest of his life, he stood in the hot Mediterranean sun and strained to remember the last time he'd spent a full day on dry land. He couldn't. He folded his arms and rubbed his
shoulders as if he had a rash. “Feels weird,” he said.

Over the course of 12 years, Michael Phelps swam more than 21,000 miles. He conquered almost enough water to circle the earth. Only in the strange and surprising and sometimes scary months after leaving the Athens pool for the final time did he realize that, somewhere in all those millions of meters, the water had conquered him too.

ANY FORMER Olympian could have told him. “It's like you're at the top of Mount Everest, and somebody moves the mountain,” says hurdler Allen Johnson. “You fall all the way down.” Veteran backstroker Lenny Krayzelburg found Phelps after his last race in Greece and said, “Four years are over. Right now.” At Team USA's final meeting of the Games, head coach Eddie Reese instructed his swimmers to stay in touch over the coming months, to make sure they kept each other's spirits up. Phelps' good friend Ian Crocker had spiraled into a depression after the Sydney Games. He almost quit college, almost quit swimming. Only after therapy and a year of medication did he feel strong enough to face another Olympics. As Debbie Phelps sat in the stands watching her son win gold after gold, the wife of a Speedo executive leaned over and warned her about the months ahead. “You won't believe it,” she said. “It's crash and burn.”

It hit him the night he won his sixth gold medal, when his teammates went out to celebrate. Phelps couldn't join them without causing a scene, so he sat in his temporary dorm, alone. His mom called from a restaurant near the Acropolis: “Michael! Where are you?” He answered softly, “This is pretty bad. I can't go out because of who I am.”

Debbie encouraged him to pass the time reflecting on all he'd accomplished. But Michael hadn't spent a millisecond of his life reflecting. This was the kid who couldn't calm down in class, who took Ritalin to get through the school day, who loved swimming in part because it kept him moving. Debbie had built structure and routine into every single day of her son's life because without it, she says, “he goes bonkers.” Hours after his Olympics had ended, the kid who couldn't sit still had nowhere to go.

It hit him when he returned to the States and jumped right on a Disney “Swim With the Stars” tour bus in Orlando. Phelps rode cross-country with Crocker and Krayzelburg in David Copperfield's old rig, which had been repainted with Michael's face and a giant question blaring in block letters across the top: “What are you going to do now?” The bus rolled north and west, and the shrieks of teenage girls became as familiar as pavement. They camped out overnight wearing homemade shirts sewn with “Marry Me Michael!” They wrote their phone numbers on cardboard posters. They hung out of car windows waving Wheaties boxes, pounded on the sides of the bus, trailed Phelps to his hotel, burst into tears. He shook his head in disbelief and wondered how to react to it all. What do you say when two girls from Santa Fe, Amanda and Tiffany, drive seven hours-with a magazine photo of you taped to the odometer-just to see you swim?

Of course, this wasn't really swimming, not the quiet, soothing, endless laps Phelps knew. He had no time to warm up or cool down, and he rarely stretched. He got off the bus, gave a speech, jumped into a pool, sprinted with some lucky kids, smiled for every picture and signed as many autographs as possible. He dozed on the bus or in hotels. When was the last time he'd slept in his own bed? Debbie followed the tour online and noticed her son's eyes losing their glimmer by the day. Bob Bowman flew out to visit his prodigy for the first time in weeks. The coach saw the rings under Michael's eyes and thought, “He looks dead.”

It hit him in Salt Lake City, when he felt a twinge in his lower back. The twinge gradually became a pang, then a sting, then a stab. He started to ache with every dive, kick and turn. “My back is killing me,” he told his mother over the phone.
Debbie felt a cold creep of fear. Her youngest daughter, Whitney, had suffered from the same kind of pain a decade earlier. She wouldn't make it to Atlanta or Sydney; herniated disks ruined her swimming career. Michael freaked at the slightest whimper from his back. Now he heard a scream. He knew pain like this would have forced him to cut back on his Athens schedule, or even miss the Games altogether. Could the black line just run out?

He swam one race at the world championships in early October, breaking the 200 freestyle shortcourse record in Indianapolis. Then he hurried off to Baltimore to see a doctor. The prognosis was bleak. Stress fracture, he was told, stay out of the pool. Was his swimming career in jeopardy? The doc gave a nonanswer: “It's an issue.” Phelps took a deep breath and thought, “Oh s-.”

It got worse. After flying all over the country for appearances, he touched down in Ann Arbor at the end of October. Bowman had taken a job as head coach at Michigan, so Phelps decided to enroll. (He'd spent the year after high school training for Athens.) He figured he'd act as a volunteer assistant and settle in before starting classes in January. He could live with Bob while looking for his own place. On Halloween Eve, after a stop at the Big House for the Michigan State game, he spotted students on campus in Speedos and swim caps. Should be an easy transition, he thought.

But first came a trip home to Baltimore for a few days. “Be careful,” Bowman told him, knowing the teen had a lot of free time on his hands. Michael rolled his eyes. “Don't worry,” he assured his coach. “I won't do anything stupid.”

On Thursday, Nov. 4, Peter Carlisle was working late when the phone rang in his Maine office. It was Phelps calling his agent. “Peter,” Michael said, his voice warbling, “I messed up.” Some friends invited the hometown hero to a party. Phelps had turned down dozens of bashes before-sorry, gotta wake up early to train-and been the designated driver for many others. This time, he went. And he drank. No one offered a ride. Some buddies piled into his SUV and Michael took the wheel. Moments later, he rolled a stop sign. Then something flashed in his rearview mirror. Sirens. His heart raced as he pulled over. He blew into a Breathalyzer: .08, legally drunk in Maryland.

Debbie cried. Bob screamed for an hour. Michael called everyone he could think of to apologize. A few days later, after the story had gone public, he boarded a plane on his way to a previously scheduled meet-and-greet. The man across the aisle in first class unfolded a newspaper and rested his gaze on a front-page headline with a picture of a gold-medal swimmer. Phelps curled deep into a blanket and turned toward the window. He had spent every waking hour of his teenage years trying to become the face of swimming. Now he stuffed that face into a pillow and tried to disappear.

PHELPS MOVED to Ann Arbor knowing only the few Michigan swimmers from Team USA. He couldn't compete because he had turned pro-not that the doctors would let him swim yet, anyway. His new job was torture, close to the water but not in it. The greatest swimmer who ever lived now had four daily responsibilities: show up at practice, hold a clipboard, write down split times and fetch drinks. As he watched warmups, he turned to Bowman and said, “This stinks.”

The coach had his own issues, like trying to read his new housemate's suddenly dark moods. Bob asked a lot of questions. What did you do last night? Who were you with? How late were you out? Michael fumed. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the two got into a spat. Michael threw all his stuff into his SUV, slammed the door shut and took off for the Ohio Turnpike. Back in Maryland, Debbie's phone rang. “Mom, I'm coming home.”

Debbie asked her son to check off all the things he hated about Michigan. Don't know anyone. Can't swim. Living with Bob. Then she reminded him that all those things were temporary. Finally, she said, “Michael, do you really want to come back to Baltimore?” Michael sighed, turned around and returned to campus. But where to go? Not back to Bob's. So he spent the afternoon bumming around the only haven he knew: the pool.

December brought silence. Phelps took a pass on dorm life (too loud) and moved into a four-story condo. He woke up whenever, on a mattress in a bedroom with a flat-screen TV and nothing else on the walls. He watched SportsCenter. He ate. He played Xbox. He ate again. He watched more TV. He napped. He made a few calls, flipped through channels, cranked music, ate some more, slept again. The text messages from Carlisle, which had once bombarded his phone with minute-by-minute plans, slowed to daily and eventually weekly beeps. He flew out of state to make a few speeches, for up to $25,000 a pop. He grinned and backslapped and signed autographs, then returned to his life of tube, food and snoozing.

Bob backed off, busy with his new team. No one from the pool called to check on Michael, even when he forgot to set an alarm and missed practice. One morning he woke up and wanted some breakfast. But after a quick trip to the store for cereal and milk, he realized he had no bowls or spoons. So he found an empty Gatorade bottle, dumped the milk and cereal inside, twisted on the cap, shook it up and drank soggy Cinnamon Toast Crunch. He had spent every day of his life listening to someone else tell him exactly what to do and how to do it. Now ¼ this. At the pool, Phelps confessed to Bowman, “I don't fit in here.” The coach looked at him and said, “Michael, you don't fit in anywhere.”

Even the water felt different. He slipped back into the pool before year's end, but swimming didn't feel like flying. The pain flared. He was fitted with a back brace, but he often neglected to wear it. He had lost his abs. His shoulders slumped instead of sloping.

He raced the Michigan swimmers and finished seventh of eight. He used the “if” word when strangers asked about 2008. On the drives home from practice—coming to a prolonged halt at each stop sign—he wondered what he would do without swimming. He couldn’t think of anything. Real life has no black line to follow. On Dec. 29, he was sentenced to 18 months’ probation on the DWI charge. Outside the courthouse, he thanked his supporters and said, “I look forward to getting back in the water.”

Phelps needed something, anything to snap him out of his funk, so Bowman scheduled four exhibition races for a weekend in mid-January, during two of Michigan’s home meets. The idea was simple: Michael would jump up on the blocks, listen for the gun, dive in and swim as fast as he could … in Lane 4 of an empty pool.

Suddenly, the kid with too much downtime had a reason to wake up in the morning. While the Wolverines prepared for the start of the Big Ten season, Phelps readied for a showdown against the only real opponent he had left: himself. He rolled out of bed at 5 a.m. He started two classes, one on sports history and another on public speaking. (For show-and-tell, he brought in a gold medal.) He bought bowls and spoons. He remembered to wear his brace. He called Bowman out of the blue and asked if, instead of setting goals for 2008 and 2012, they could talk about 2005. His new routine had revitalized him. And he realized that, more than the fame or the records or the green or the gold, he needed the water—needed it like air. “When I’m not swimming,” Phelps says, “I have no idea what to do with myself. Nothing to look forward to, no goals, nothing. Just killing time. Just hanging on.”

SO HE SWIMS. He set three pool records in his solo act, to the delight of 1,400 fans, the most ever for a Michigan home meet. Six weeks later, at the American Short Course Championships in Texas, he broke an 18-year-old freestyle record held by Matt Biondi, then signed autographs for hours until the place emptied out. At U.S. trials earlier this month in Indianapolis, he won all five of his races, then beamed as he said, “I feel like the old me again.”

But the old Michael would never have joked about a “horrible” last lap, the way he does now. The old Michael would never have loved swimming just for swimming’s sake. The old Michael would never have looked back for any reason, much less to reflect on a lesson learned from a 12-year-old girl.

Her name is Kristin, and she has Down syndrome. She also has a heart defect that 16 surgeries haven’t fixed. She dreams of becoming an athlete, but running puts too much stress on her heart. So she’s left with one sport: swimming. Kristin is a Make-a-Wish kid, and her one wish was to meet Michael Phelps. She and her family traveled from Illinois to the Michigan pool on Jan. 17, four days before his exhibition. The boy with the long back snuck up behind her. Sure enough, the shrieks followed. Michael Phelps!

Kristin sat in the stands as her idol jumped in the pool. He swam his usual laps—so mundane the day before—while she cheered him on: “Go for the gold!” He waved and sped up, feeling no pain. After practice, he waited for her to change into her bathing suit and grinned as she dove in. She climbed onto his back and held on tight. Phelps took off. “Faster!” she yelled, giggling. “Go faster!” He did. Faster and faster Phelps went, smiling wider and wider, and Kristin felt like she was flying.

Hours passed as the two kids swam, following the black line, not thinking about the future, happy enough to be in the water, where every day is a good day.