Olympic icon Michael Phelps fired up by return to US swimming trials
By AFP
OMAHA: The US Olympic swimming trials still get Michael Phelps’s synapses firing, even though the Games great has nothing on the line at the pressure packed meeting.
Phelps is at the trials in Omaha as an honored spectator, but after five Olympic campaigns that yielded an astonishing 28 medals — 23 of them gold — Phelps said being on the deck in Omaha, Nebraska, gave him chills.
“Walking on the pool deck I had to take deep breaths, I felt chills going up my body.”
Phelps said he even felt a few tears rising — and somehow all those years of preparation for and competing at trials — this is the first edition of the qualifying meet since 1996 in which he hasn’t featured — kicked in.
“Body-wise, I’m almost ready,” Phelps said Monday. “Put me in there, let me do a time trial or something. This is all I know and all I’ve really understood.”
