I never really had too many role models just within the sport itself, but of course Michael was the guy to watch.” … It was awesome, really inspiring watching that. “Beijing was the first Olympics I remember watching. “He was the guy growing up,” said Caeleb Dressel, who is expected to be the male star of these trials. His spectacular dominance made that happen, while catching the eye of a new generation of swimmers. Why can't we have that for swimming? We want to make swimming bigger, and Phelps, definitely, he did that.”Īn interview didn’t go by from 2008-16 when Phelps didn’t talk about exactly that, his goal of giving his sport a bigger profile. Like when you turn on the TV, you see the NBA. We want to put swimming in everyone's living room. “I remember one of our first times we were hanging out and we were talking, and we were like, what is one of the things that we want to do in the sport? And we both said, we want to make swimming bigger than what it is. He made the sport bigger than what it was. “It's a love/hate thing with me and him when he was swimming, just because we swam basically the same events. “Man, Phelps, me and him,” said his longtime rival and teammate Ryan Lochte. He changed the sport more dramatically than any other person, not even close.” He’s just been such a big part of swimming for so long. “I mean, he's the GOAT, he's a Hall of Famer, but ultimately for us, I wouldn't be sitting here today in front of all of you if Michael Phelps didn't do what he did for swimming in our country.”Īdded Rowdy Gaines, Olympic gold medalist and NBC commentator, in an interview Saturday: “It’s weird that he’s not here. “I'm not sure that we would be who we are … without Michael Phelps,” Tim Hinchey, president and CEO of USA Swimming, said during a pre-trials press conference Friday. (He is expected to come to the trials for a day or two in the next week in a new role: spectator.) That switch worked so well for NBC that it’s happening again in Tokyo, this time without Phelps, so his presence lingers long after he has left. Why? Because of the nation’s fascination with Phelps. That year, the swimming trials moved from the small band-box venues of the past to a 17,000-seat basketball arena in downtown Omaha, with a massive temporary pool built from the ground up, then filled by the Omaha Fire Department.Īlso that year, the swimming finals at the Olympics were moved to the morning in China so they could be shown in primetime the previous evening back in the United States. He won eight medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, eight medals again (all gold) in Beijing in 2008, six in London in 2012 and the six in Rio in 2016.īut it was the promise of that transformational performance in Beijing in 2008 - going for eight golds and getting them all - that took his sport to previously unimaginable heights, turning it into primetime, must-see TV. He went on to finish fifth in the 200-meter butterfly in Sydney and was on his way. Phelps initially competed at the trials as a 15-year-old in 2000, becoming the youngest male swimmer to make a U.S. trials, Bill Clinton was president - in his first term. The last time Phelps was not swimming in the U.S.

Olympic trials are being held without the best swimmer to ever dive into a pool.

He has been gone from his sport since the last Olympics, five years ago in Rio, when he won the final six of his 28 overall medals, ensuring his place in history as the most decorated Olympian of all time.īut here, on the eve of the trials, it sinks in: For the first time since a previous century, for the first time since 1996, the U.S. It is hardly breaking news to announce that Michael Phelps is not at the 2021 U.S. Watch Video: 'We're all training like it's definitely happening': Katie Ledecky on Tokyo Olympics

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