Phelps wants hugs, holiday
2008-08-17 11:03
Beijing - Glowing from his record-breaking eighth Olympic gold medal win, the world's greatest swimmer just wants to give his mother a proper hug.
Michael Phelps, whose quest to beat Mark Spitz's 36-year
record of seven golds for a single Olympics has dominated the
Beijing Games, said all he wanted to do now was to go home and
relax.
"The first thing I'd like to do to my mum is just hug her.
"I've literally seen her for about 30 seconds this whole time," said Phelps, whose weepy mother Debbie has been a fixture in the stands as he racked up medals this week.
"One of the things I really want to do is just lay in my own bed for 5 minutes and just relax," Phelps said, after the US won the men's medley relay on Sunday and brought him his dream of a golden eight.
Received a $1m bonus
His medal round his neck, Phelps climbed up past
photographers in the press seats after the race so he could
reach up and kiss his mother and sisters in the stands above.
"She just said congratulations. And then she started
crying, and I started crying and then my sister started crying.
We haven't really had too much time together," Phelps said.
The 23-year-old's breathtaking nine days of slicing through the Water Cube pool have earned him a $1m bonus from
sponsors and a place in the pantheon of all-time sporting
greats.
After a vacation with friends to celebrate, Debbie wants him to knuckle down and try out for the 2009 swimming championships in Rome.
"My mum's told me I'd better make the team because she wants to go to Rome. So I've got the pressure from the mum," he said.
A Sapa report by Rebecca Bryan said that Phelps thought that there was plenty left to do to achieve his goal of changing the sport of swimming in the US.
"There are some things I still want to do to raise the bar a bit more in the world of swimming," Phelps said. "For me, it's still work in progress."
Experiment a little
He thought he and his coach Bob Bowman would chart a new course for London 2012.
Phelps said he and Bowman would experiment a little, as they did at the 2005 world championships in Montreal in the wake of his impressive Athens Games.
"I think over the next four years, I would like to try new events and see what happens.
"Bob has said he wants to start fresh and do things he hasn't done before, new training methods and stuff like that."