LONDON — Michael Phelps has left the building, taking 22 Olympic medals with him but leaving a goal for a 17-year-old swimmer from Colorado. For Missy Franklin, the pool stretches to infinity and beyond.
“Seeing Michael Phelps become the most decorated Olympian of all time is so inspiring for me and gives me so much motivation,” Franklin said Saturday, on a night when she rocked more solid gold as the U.S. women won the medley relay, and Phelps retired on top of his game with a final victory lap of his own. “I don’t think his shoes will ever be filled. I think his footsteps are huge. But, hopefully, I can make a little path next to him.”
Collecting five medals and two world records as souvenirs of her first trip to the Summer Games, Franklin experienced the European vacation of a lifetime. She already has struck gold as many times as Jesse Owens did. Know how many Olympic medals Phelps won in high school? Zero.
But here’s what boggles the mind:
Missy the Missile is just getting warmed up.
“She’s good for at least two more Olympics,” said Dick Franklin, knocking on his temple, joking that the luck of good health will need to be on his daughter’s side to swim in a Summer Games so far beyond the horizon the host city has yet to be named.
Before stopping long enough to inhale a celebratory cheeseburger, Missy the Missile declared she’s already aiming at 2016, when the Olympics will be in Brazil. “Of course, I want to go to Rio. Absolutely!” Franklin gushed.
Her competition is no longer in the pool. It’s in the history books.
Jack Nicklaus won 18 major golf championships, giving Tiger Woods a dream.
Babe Ruth’s 60 homers were always on the mind of Roger Maris.
After Franklin’s backstroke staked her American teammates to an early lead, the world record of 3 minutes, 52.05 seconds set in the 4×100-meter medley relay brought the crowd in the Aquatics Centre to its feet. It wasn’t Franklin’s first world record. It won’t be her last.
Long ago, Phelps told Franklin world records become less special over time.
“Oh, don’t say that,” she told the sport’s biggest icon.
The reason Missy the Missile might defy conventional capitalistic wisdom and delay getting rich quick with endorsement deals marketers project could be worth in excess of $1 million per year was explained succinctly by her father. “As the fun goes down,” Dick Franklin said, “the work goes up.”
To have even a remote shot at winning 22 medals, the fun must endure for another dozen years. The pride of the Colorado Stars swim club has five medals hanging from her neck. She also has a bull’s-eye on her back. Franklin is now both the inspiration and the target for every elite female swimmer in the world.
“Her life is forever changed because of this week. Missy and her family have to look at their options and what’s important. Her first responsibility is to Missy Franklin, what makes her happy, and it’s not to U.S. swimming. I would tell anybody that,” said Olympic swim coach Teri McKeever, whose college program at California-Berkeley should be considered the early favorite as the place Franklin will take her talent after graduation from Regis Jesuit High School in 2013.
“There’s a whole joy in climbing the mountain. It changes when you get to the top. How do you keep climbing, when you’re already at the top of the mountain? How do you stay there, when everyone is shooting for you? Missy hasn’t had to do that yet. That will be her next challenge. I have no doubt she will figure it out.”
On his way toward the exit and a tee time to work on his drives down the fairway rather than a dive off the blocks, Phelps was asked what swimming will do without him.
“There’s so much more,” Phelps replied, “that could be done.”
The very idea of another athlete winning 22 Olympic medals seems unfathomable. How could Franklin possibly get there? One lap at a time.
During an Olympic meet where she never backed down from competition, there were only fleeting seconds when I saw her act 17, like a teenage girl smaller than the big moment.
It was after she won her first gold, in the 100 backstroke, and was ushered in the interview room. The silver and bronze medalists were supposed to be seated alongside Franklin, in front of the bright lights, but had failed to show. Before the microphones were turned on and questions began flying, she whispered a tiny confession.
“I don’t like being up here all by myself,” Franklin said.
She isn’t alone atop the Olympic world.
Franklin is back in the pool, going stroke for stroke in the lane next to Phelps, chasing history.
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053, mkiszla@denverpost.com or twitter.com/markkiszla
