Wiedmer: Phelps will never find a better time to retire

At the Rio Games, star swimmer Michael Phelps added five gold medals and one silver to his already substantial haul of Olympic medals. He says he's retiring, but he also said he was stepping away from the pool after the London Games in 2012.
At the Rio Games, star swimmer Michael Phelps added five gold medals and one silver to his already substantial haul of Olympic medals. He says he's retiring, but he also said he was stepping away from the pool after the London Games in 2012.

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Michael Phelps should always follow his heart regarding his probable retirement from competitive swimming. Gosh knows if he decides to try to win a few more gold medals at age 35 at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, he has certainly earned that right if he can qualify.

Heck, at the rate he's going, he and infant son Boomer could become the first father-son duo on an Olympic relay team - a 16-year-old Boomer joining a 47-year-old Michael and two baggage handlers to be named later at the 2032 Moon Games.

Yet even as Phelps runs roughshod over the notion that time stops for no one - his nickname could become Dorian Gray, the man who never ages - he will surely slow down eventually.

Friday night, 21-year-old Joseph Schooling from Singapore beat him in the 100-meter butterfly - an event Phelps had owned the past three Olympics and what will be his final individual race if he truly retires. Such flip turns could become more frequent in the years ahead. It happens. Just ask Roger Federer or Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, a trio of uber athletes who once looked pretty invincible themselves.

That said, other than that hiccup against Schooling, has any aging legend written a better script to walk away than Michael the Magnificent did in Rio?

And it's not just the five golds and one silver he won as a 31-year-old, stunning though those are. It's the grace, gratitude, sportsmanship and camaraderie he showed along the way, traits not always associated with him previously.

As Phelps told The Associated Press over the weekend: "I wouldn't change anything. This is the best place I've ever been in my life."

Prior to the past year or so, the only safe place he'd ever been in his life was the pool.

There was the embarrassing video of Phelps supposedly puffing on a marijuana bong in 2009. There were the two DUI arrests, the second of those just two years ago.

Imagine how unforgiving fans, talk radio, the Twitter universe and media in general might have been if Phelps had been an athlete constantly in the spotlight rather than one we pretty much reacquaint ourselves with every four years.

Think he'd be quite so well received? Even though no one's ever claimed marijuana and alcohol are performance-enhancing drugs, think Phelps might not have gotten close to the same contempt and condemnation so many have rightly aimed at the Russians for their doping scandal?

But this country loves winners, especially when they're clad in red, white and blue. And Phelps is the biggest winner in the history of the Olympics, a talent so rare and regal he has more gold medals than all but 32 of the countries represented in Rio have won in the entire history of their participation in the Olympics, Summer and Winter Games combined.

He even eclipsed the almost mythical Leonidas of Rhodes, whose 12 individual first-place finishes - they didn't have medals in 152 B.C., when Leonidas won the last of his sprinting titles - were overcome by the 13th and last of Phelps' individual golds in his 200-meter individual medley win on Thursday.

When you start breaking records that have survived for 2,168 years, you really are among the sporting gods.

Yet records, even those lasting multiple millenniums, are made to be broken. What will hopefully endure is how this amazing athlete became a better person in what appears to be the twilight of his career.

After that second DUI arrest in 2014, Phelps sought help. Underwent counseling and quit drinking. Sought to rebuild his relationship with his estranged father. Got engaged to his longtime girlfriend Nicole Johnson, who has since become the mother of his child and is expected to become his wife this year.

Said Phelps' teammate Anthony Ervin in an AP story published Sunday: "Being Michael requires such isolation. Other people respect that. They give him that space because he is the greatest. But this time around he started reaching out, reaching out to other people, bringing them closer, letting that gap be bridged. That was special."

It was apparently so special his teammates elected him their captain for the first time of his five Olympics. It was apparently so obvious that he was chosen to carry the flag in the opening ceremony, as much a salute to his newfound maturity as his lifelong talent.

This doesn't mean Phelps won't backslide in the future without the lure of swimming to straighten and strengthen his focus. It doesn't mean he should necessarily start a new chapter in his life, though he strongly hinted to NBC of that goal moving forward.

What should be strongly considered by Phelps is that very few athletes pull a Peyton Manning and exit on top. Among athletes in individual sports, only Pete Sampras readily comes to mind, smartly retiring after his 2002 U.S. Open tennis title.

"I fell in love with this sport after my mom put me in it for water safety," Phelps told ESPN this past week. "It turned into this - something I dreamt of and I've lived."

Yes, he's earned the right to retire when ready, but it's hard to imagine a better time to exit than now, when the most decorated Olympian ever can walk away owning his sport rather than it ever appearing to own him.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.

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