How Bob Bowman Built The Score To Planet Phelps, Its Pantheon, Symphony & Stars

The maestro behind the greatest medals movement in Olympic history is Machiavelli with a stopwatch.

Michael Phelps, 31 and 20 years into his partnership with Bob Bowman, was not far wide of the mark when he described as “insane” his 23 golds atop 28 medals in all at four Olympics 2004-2016 after it all began with a fifth place in the 200m butterfly final for a 15-year-old at Sydney 2000.

The grin of a mad scientist breaks out Bowman’s face as he revealed the terrible truth the day after Phelps had past Spitzean heights with an eighth gold medal at Beijing 2008: “At the Melbourne World Cup in 2003 I stepped on his goggles – deliberately. He said ‘hey, someone stepped on my goggles’. I said ‘Oh … well, you’re just gonna have to go without them’.”

In Phelps, Bowman found the raw materials that he had been looking for at the North Baltimore Swim Club. “At 11, he was so fast, he had to swim with older swimmers … but by the end of the practice, and at the most difficult part of the session, I saw a little cap moving up forward to the front of the line with each repeat swim. It was so remarkable, I’d never seen anything like it and when I went home that night I couldn’t sleep I was so excited, but of course I didn’t tell him that.”

Instead, Bowman piled on the metres and challenges. After one particularly bruising practice, Phelps leapt out of the water and started splashing water at some of the girls watching nearby. “I said ‘you should be very tired, that’s the hardest practice you’ve ever done’,” Bowman recalled.

“I’ll never forget, he looked me straight in the eye and said ‘I don’t get tired’, so I made that my life goal to see if I could accomplish that.”

Michael Phelps by Patrick B. Kraemer

Michael Phelps by PBK

Bowman set about teaching the Baltimore Bullet how to keep loading his gun even as enemy fire keeps raining in, as it does in the Olympic cauldron.

When a scrawny, gangly 12-year-old raced at his first national junior meet in the United States, Bowman noticed he had left his goggles behind just before he walked out to the blocks. “I saw them sitting in our team area, I could have taken the goggles to him but I decided to keep them and see what he could do,” Bowman said.

“So he swam and won the race without the goggles just like he would do in Beijing in the 200 butterfly when his goggles filled with water. He was ready years before.”

Bowman build barriers for the young Phelps to find his way over. “I’ve always tried to find ways to give him adversity in either meets or practice and have him overcome it,” said the coach. When Phelps was 14, Bowman sought out a competition where racing was held late evening. As Phelps raced, Bowman had a word in the driver’s ear: “Make sure we get to the hotel 10 minutes late.”

“Well, guess what,” says Bowman with a chuckle. “That way there was no dinner – he had to deal with it. He’s used to handling pressure situations in training, where that pressure comes from me.

“We have often put him in a situation where practice is not over until he achieves a certain time. Things have to be done absolutely correctly or we do them over.”

Bowman learned some of his tricks and tactics from former Britain performance director Bill Sweetenham. “I was at the AIS [Australian Institute of Sport] when Bill was there training a squad of juniors. After one session, they all complained that the water in the water fountain was too hot. So the next day, there was no water fountain.” Sweetenham has had a builder remove it overnight. “I wouldn’t want you drinking water that’s a little bit too warm,” he told the swimmers. From then, they had to bring their own bottles “and be responsible for that”.

Michael Phelps of the United States of America (USA)Press Conference

Bowman took Phelps to junior meets where “he would race three times in the morning, three in the afternoon and then I’d say to him, ‘that’s not quite right, you could go again’. Every time he got out and said ‘I’m tired’, I said ‘no, no, look, let’s just try that again, go on now’, and every time he’d get back in and go again.”

In Rio at the last press conference of his career as a racer, Phelps was asked to explain his success. He said:

“My success is nothing out of the ordinary: goal-setting, believing in myself and not giving up until I get there. Sure, I went through ups and downs, in and out of the pool, but not giving up was instilled in me at a very young age. I was in pretty good physical shape for these Games but I had to get my mind right. I said to Bob, I will never let myself get to 230 pounds (104kg) again. I will stay in some kind of shape. The last two Olympics it hasn’t worked, hopefully this time it’s a triumph.”

You can read more about that in The Golden Rules:

A Book For All Season The Maturing Of Bob Bowman, A Mentor ‘Mellowed, Softer’ But ‘Smarter’ For ‘Let Me Embrace Thee, Sour Adversity’: How Bowman Hooks Shakespeare To Swimming

He takes with him “so many incredible memories” that selecting his favourite things is like trying to digest a meal before eating it.

The menu includes 23 golds. Which one to pick as the standout?

“This Games hands down it was the 200 ‘fly. That might be one of the greatest races of my life. How deep I had to dig, and how bad I wanted it back after 2012. I’ve been on the good side of some of those close ones. As a whole, I don’t know, every Olympics has been so different.”

It was: five golds, one silver behind Joe Schooling, the pupil who became the master and one of waves of younger swimmers revealing all week long the photos (Ryan Murphy from 2004), the posters on the bedroom wall (Olivia Smoliga, you’re not alone), the inspiration that fuelled and drove (Katie Ledecky, Adam Peaty and James Guy watching telly in between reading Harry Potter and project week at primary school). Phelps has been the golden snitch of swimming, the hare and draw in inspiration.

“I saw a picture with me and Ryan when I was on a ‘Swim with the Stars’ tour in Atlanta in 2004,” says Phelps. “All these photos are showing up, that when I was 19 or 20, and they were eight, nine, 10, so being able to share those memories and being on my last team with them – it’s exciting to see what the future will bring. We have a lot of talent. It’s not one or two or three countries, it’s everybody. I am very proud to see it that way, and hopefully it continues to grow.”

Timely Instinct

Michael Phelps talks the thrill of the wave with coach Bob Bowman at Melbourne 2007 world titles – by Patrick B. Kraemer

The boy Phelps had a built-in clock. Bowman asked him to write down the times he wanted to achieve in three favourite races. “He was just 11 but six months later he swam those exact times, to the one-hundredth of a second,” Bowman recalled. “He always had a very good sense of finding where he wants to go and how to go there.”

Goal-setting became a daily habit. Bowman explains: “On a daily basis I remind Michael of what his long and short-term goals are and how he stands today in relation to that. That’s where that whole thing comes in where many say ‘I’ll deal with it tomorrow’. I’m there to say no, let’s deal with it today. That’s my job. When we’ve had tempers flare, that’s where the issue is.

“He may not be ready to face that at that time and I make him do it or get him to a situation where it happens. There’s a lot of work that goes into it. There are a lot of ups and downs. He has bad days just like everybody else.”

Canadian medley ace Marianne Limpert trained in Baltimore for a stretch and told Bowman: “I’m so glad I’m training here…I just though Michael was like a little swimming robot but now I see he’s a real person, he has his good moods and bad moods. Even when he’s in a bad mood he channels it into effort.”

“One of his best attributes”, says Bowman, whose role has been pivotal, critical even: up to Beijing there had been 12 years of emotional, mental and physical preparation of a kind that few could have withstood. London 2012 was not wanted he wanted it to be; it proved toop much for him to get back up after the soaring of 2008 and the gladiatorial battles of 2009. But the button marked “driven – do not touch” is as much a part of the Phelps build as a stripe is to a tiger.

Michael Phelps – Motivation Machinec – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Bowman called Phelps “The Motivation Machine”, with “good mood, bad mood, happy or angry, channelled into effort to take him to new places. That’s one of his best attributes.”

Asked what he had wanted out of Rio 2016 and a fifth Games beyond the medals, Phelps said: “I wanted people to see the real me. I can’t wrap my head around it. I’ve lived so many incredible things. I’m at a loss of words.” What he wanted was “to make swimming the big sport it deserves to be. I want to change swimming”.

He will be an assistant coach to Bowman at Arizona State University, while his eponymous swim school and foundation. You might also expect to see Phelps lead swimmers into a more professional era worldwide in the coming years.

The Nuance of Numbers

At 23, the gold count, matched the most iconic shirt number of them all in American sport. Phelps beamed broadly and said: “I guess everything happens for a reason. Obviously, you guys know, Michael Jordan has been an inspiration for me throughout my career. Watching what he did in the sport of basketball is something I’ve dreamed about doing in the sport of swimming. We’ve done a lot, but there is a lot more work to be done. I was thinking about that today, after the relay. Number 23 will always be a special number. It always has been, and now it will be even more special.”

Phelps’ is moving on, no coming back this time: “I’m in the best place possible, this (Rio 2016) is the cherry I wanted to put on the cake. When I came back (out of retirement in 2013) I wanted to see how much more I could do. I don’t have anything else left.

“I have a new future – the list is endless of things I want to do. This is it. This is the last time you’ll ever see me racing in the water again. That’s why the emotions took over me last night, trying to wrap my head around 28 Olympic medals. I woke Boomer (3 months) up (when I got back to the Olympic Village), which Nicole [Johnson, the partner he will marry in December] wasn’t happy about, but I …

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