Even after winning more medals than anyone else in Olympic history, Michael Phelps still proclaims himself a homebody– if by “home,” you mean Meadowbrook and the Baltimore suburbs. Phelps is in the early stages of his comeback, and instead of decamping for fancier or more well-known pastures (or pools, I guess), he’s sticking with the training facility–and the city–he knows and loves.
According to a swooning new AP story about the comeback attempt, Phelps is training in “a rectangular cube of gray concrete blocks” where “kids do cannonballs off the side of the pool, teenagers sun on the faux beach with umbrellas stuck in the sand, geriatrics glide slowly through the water looking to ward off the advancing years.” Meadowbrook is also described as “Anywhere USA.” Okay, sure, kids do cannonballs at Meadowbrook… but it’s also the training facility for several other gold medal winners, so stop with the condescension, okay? Oh, wait, one more beat: “Who would think the greatest Olympian of all time would come from suburban Baltimore?” Phelps’s coach Bob Bowman told the AP. Um, why not?
As far as Phelps’s training regimen goes, he’s swimming about half as many laps as he did in the run up to previous Olympics, but spending more time lifting weight. Better to look good for naked pictures, perhaps?
