If you are a swimmer or a swammer you can surely relate to the unique nature of swimming friendships. Swimming is an athletic pursuit that comes with a lot of downtime, hanging around on deck and in hotels. We have a focus on improving ourselves and we can often see our closest competitors as being integral to our own successes. By nature this can cause teammates, and even rivals from surrounding teams, to become closer than one might see in other sports. Growing up in a swim club can sometimes make us feel as though we have dozens of brothers and sisters, and have been adopted by the parents of our teammates. Swimmers chill together, and that may be just as important to the overall career of a swimmer as the time we spend in the water.
For example, when asked how he celebrated after winning two gold medals on Tuesday night, Michael Phelps answered “We played cards and then I guess the Snapchat filters have been a big hit for everybody so we’ve been messing around with those.”
Is it not beautiful that this 31 year old legend gave the same answer that many of us might have given if asked the same question as a 12 year old on a club team trip?
It is refreshing to see that these aspects of competitive swimming can still ring true beyond summer league, club, high school and even college swimming, into the world swimming scene as well. As we prepare to witness what is most likely the last face-off between Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte in the 200 IM final tonight, we should all take a little time to appreciate their example.
Take a look at these quotes from Phelps yesterday, on the prospect of facing Lochte again in tonight’s 200 IM final:
“I consider Ryan and I have probably grown closer as friends this year than we have in the past, so we’ll have one more time to hop in the pool and duke it out.”
“You know the history him and I have had with one another is something special and something I’ve never had in another competitor of mine. We’ve been racing for the last 12 years and having one more battle tomorrow. It will be fun.”
Fun. Think about that. With the pressure of swimming at the highest level in our sport, and with all of the ups and downs of his career culminating in one of the final events of his last Olympic Games, when the Greatest of All Time is asked about facing his long-time rival for one more round he is still able to cap it off with the word “fun.”
These two have brought so much to the sport of swimming over their careers, and at the heart of their back and forth progression that has taken the medley to new heights since their king-of-the-mountain contest began in 2004, is a shining example of that beautiful and unique-to-swimming type of friendship. No matter where the chips fall in the 200 IM final tonight, I hope that we can all appreciate the beauty of this part of our sport, that can apparently be the same beyond age 30 as it is at age 8.
When these two touch the pad at the finish tonight, please join SwimSwam in raising a toast to swim friends all over the world.
I love this so much Perfectly paints a picture of swim friendships at all ages and levels of the sport.
Me too – so special to witness this friendship in and out of the pool . Those values go beyond all medals won or lost . Those 2 are legends and will stay Legends for a long time .
Legends forever, actually! 🙂