I am sorry i am only posting now about my meeting with Michael Phelps but i was on holiday at my parents and very bad acces to a computer .

the meeting was very nice and i will post the questions not in order of the meeting because it was more like a conversation between Sophie my sister , Lacey Nymeyer (a former swimmer who now works for Octagon ), Jo from Speedo , Michael Phelps and me . I will be posting by kind of question , in this post i will be posting the swim related questions .







ME / What do you think of the new starting block ?

MP/ (he was getting some juice from the buffet, with a shrug ) There's not really much to say about it . Though it makes you start faster .

MP/ I was surprised to anchor the relay but Adrien wanted a shot at the world record. I asked the coach are you sure ?I was glad that the USA had a 2 second lead because i felt the Italian swimmer was catching up with me. I think i only swam at 75 % of my capacity. I need to work more .


MP/ It is my 3rd duel , the 2 first one was against Australia who are now fed up with getting spanked by the USA.(said with an ironic tone ).They did better on the 2nd one.

JO AND ME joked about the score against Europe.
JO/ It is embarrassing to be nearly a 100 points behind .

MP/ (smile )We try to swim our best as a team so we can deliver for the USA.

MP/ It is your first swim meet?

SOPHIE (my sister )/ Yes it was my first .

MP/ It is a good one to start with. It has a college sort of atmosphere.

ME / It is my 3rd .The 1st one was the french stop of the Mare Nostrum in 2007. I was in Le Cannet with a friend . I was very excited to have a chance to see you swim but you couldn't come because you were recovering from sickness. I still had he chance to meet Nathalie Couglin, the club CW , Kitajima and some Europeans swimmers.

MP/ I don't remember I was going to the Mare Nostrum in 2007.

ME/ The Mare Nostrum is a 3 city meet: Barcelona, Le Cannet and Monaco.You have to do it once , it is the most important LC meet in Europe . The meet has a family feel to it. Le Cannet is a nice town by the sea.

MP/ I love Barcelona. I have good memories from there.

ME/ The second meet I went to was this year's French Open in Paris . Paris in June is very nice ,the meet location is fabulous .The location of the meet is at Le Pré Catelan the most posh sport club in Paris.

Are you going to come to a LC meet in Europe before London ?

MP / I would like to but Bob decide of the schedule .Hopefully i will before London .

SOPHIE / Do you wake up , thinking yeah! Another day of swimming ! It is hard for me to imagine what kind of drive you need to have in order to achieve what you did.

MP/ It depends! Some morning , I would like to stay in bed .When i am in an intense training program, it is easier to get up beause I know I need to get up .

The only bad thing about the morning practice is the water is cold . Even after many years of swimming. The worst is to get in the water, i can sometime take my time to dive in . It gets Bob mad !

ME/ Are you going to swim camps after new year?

MP/ ( with sarcasm in his voice and doing the quote sign ) Yes on the 28th December because i have a coach who has his swimmers best interest at heart. He is that great! We are going to Colorado Springs !
If you know the place , all you can say is that you have the training center and the training center . There is nothing else to do than train .

ME/ That is Tough love!

MP/ Me and Bob have a love /hate relationship .

This year i am glad not to have a room mate. I would go crazy , when I stay too long with a swimmer room mate, I go crazy even when it is a friend. I can't have a swimming house mate with me.

ME/ How about your experience with the straight arm recovery . Do you have an idea why it did not work out for you ?

MP/ I wasn't very comfortable with it . It was not as comfortable as my old technique. I was pulling less water than before (showing the two techniques). I had to use the the old method for the 200 free so ended mixing the 2 strokes . Switching between the two was hard for me . It very different for each swimmers , you have to be comfortable with your stokes . I am glad to be back to the old habit. Bob decided not to pursue the experiment , he likes to try new things but you have to be comfortable with your swim.

ME/ Do Bob and you have a deadline for deciding the events you are going to swim in london ?

MP/ Bob and i will decide by the end of next year our events in London .

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