INTERVIEW: Michael Phelps: "Long fingernails and fingers help"

Beijing - dpa: Do you work with a psychologist or how do you stay so strong mentally? Michael Phelps: No, nothing at all. I think everything I have gone through in the last four years, actually the last eight years, I was able to do because I could relax and stay focused on what I had to do and stay mentally tough. dpa: How do you relax? Phelps: I just sit, just sitting around listen to music, we were playing a lot of board games and stuff in Beijing. dpa: How do you protect yourself against all this media hype? Phelps: There is basically nothing you can do. You make sure you are focused on what your goal is and what you want to achieve. That's just all that I did. I was focused on what i wanted to do and what I wanted to accomplish. dpa: Can you walk through the town of Ann Arbor, where you have been living, without being hounded all the time? Phelps: Oh yes, walking through Ann Arbor is fine, nobody says anything. I can live my life how I want to live it. dpa: Where do you keep your gold medals? Phelps: Some of my medals are in Baltimore and some are here, somewhere. I am not really sure where they are or who has them, but they are with the group somewhere. dpa: Are they still special to you? Phelps: They are very special. Those are the things that stay with you forever. Once you are an Olympic medallist, you are always an Olympic medallist. It is different from world records, world records can be broken and they are usually broken, but no one can ever take an Olympic gold medal away from you. dpa: How do athletes from other countries react to you in the athletes village? Phelps: Some people were taking pictures and that's about it, but other than that, it was fine, it was normal. dpa: You seem much more emotional after winning a relay. Is that the case? Phelps: With a relay it is not all you. You have to have four good swims in order to win and it takes team work and there is so much more excitement with the teamwork. dpa: Do you have any regrets growing up? Phelps: No dpa: You could not do the things that many other teenagers experience, like smoking dope, or what one would consider normal for teenagers. Phelps: Dope? Never would and don't do that. I consider what I did growing up normal. That is what I wanted to do. Everything that I ended up sacrificing or missing I will have the opportunity to do when I finish my career and when I retire and when I am done. I don't really see myself giving up much because I am experiencing so much. dpa: What makes you different from other swimmers? What makes Michael Phelps Michael Phelps? Phelps: I dont know what makes me different - it beats me. I do what I love. I love to compete and I love to swim. I have very, very high goals that I have set for myself and that's what really motivates me and keep me going strong. dpa: Is there a question that you have never been asked and that you would like to answer? Phelps: I have been pretty much been asked every one, everything that's in the book. dpa: After winning a race by the smallest of margins at these Olympics, what does the company that keeps the time mean to you? What role does Omega play in your life? Phelps: Omega plays a very big role in our sport, for timing and telling you who wins. And this Olympics for the 100m 'fly I was very very happy to have the cameras and the touch guys and everything slowed down to ten thousands of a second. It's kind of a family away from home. They are amazing people to work with. I have been with them for a few years. dpa: Growing up, did you get up at 5.30 in the morning to train? Phelps: I was not up at 5.30 in the morning, I never swam at that time. The earliest I went was by about 7. That was the earliest I got into the water. I was never in the water before that. When I was in high school I did not have a first class, so I could go in a little late. I got there like 9. So I would swim an hour-and-a-half before school. dpa: What do you think of Germany's double gold medal winner, Britta Steffen? Phelps: Britta Steffen is amazing. That 50m and 100m race, to watch her win gold. They were pretty cool races. The 50 was unreal, a hundredth of a second. It feels good to be on the winning end of that one, one hundredth, so definitely congratulations to her. Long fingernails and fingers help. dpa: Are there any athletes that you idolize, that you would want to have your picture taken with? Phelps: Actually I walked up to Rafael Nadal. And he is probably my favourite tennis player to watch and I walked up to him and I was like: I just want to meet you and don't want to take a picture or anything, I just want to meet you. And I told him: 'I watch you all the time when you play tennis and I love watching you play tennis. I told him good luck, that is probably the only person. We see people like Dirk Nowitzki and all the guys, so it is pretty neat.