(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Swimmer Michael Phelps said he looked up to basketball legend Michael Jordan for inspiration as a kid.
Speaking at the Doha Goals Forum here on Sunday, the Olympic champion who is making a comeback said: "As a kid I looked up to Jordan, because of what he did and how he changed the sport of basketball. That's what I wanted to do in the sport of swimming. We've come a long way since 2000 and my first Olympic Games."
The American legend who has won an astonishing 22 medals at the Olympic Games is one of several Olympic legends who are attending the two-day meet in Los Angeles, one of the greatest gatherings of Olympic legends outside of the Olympic Games.
The list included Carl Lewis, Nadia Comaneci, Bart Conner, Greg Louganis, Apolo Ohno, Yuna Kim, Michelle Kwan, Scott Hamilton, Meryl Davis, Hannah Teter, Abby Wambach, John Carlos and Ato Boldon.
Phelps was interviewed by Boldon, a four-time Olympic medallist and IAAF Global Ambassador from Trindad and Tobago. The swimmer also took questions from the audience.
One Special Olympics Games athlete asked Phelps where he keeps his medals and whether he looks at them for inspiration. Phelps answered: " I think there's only one person, maybe a handful of people in this world who know where my medals are" I probably have only looked at them about once or twice all together because there are so many other things that I want to do, whether it's in the pool or out of the pool. My goals are nonstop."
Phelps said he aims to have 'fun' on his comeback while the situation was different in 2012.
"Going into 2012, I felt like I had to finish there. I had to make it to 2012. Now, I'm just having fun."
Asked to elaborate on the sequence leading to his comeback, he said: "It was like 9:30, 10 o'clock at night one day and I called him [coach Bob Bowman]. I was like, 'what do you think about me coming back?' he was like, 'call me in the morning.' So I called him the next morning and he knew that I was for real. I got back to Baltimore and we had a meeting and he's like, 'we're going to do this the right way.' That's the way we've been doing it. I'm in a much better place now than I probably have ever been in my career."
Walking down memory lane, Phelps said he did not win any medals at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 which made him very sad.
"I was so discouraged that I didn't medal. I was fifth in my first Olympics at 15 [in his only race, the 200m butterfly]. I didn't tie my suit. It was my first time out of the country. I was literally not prepared at all. But I wanted so much more, and I could never, ever settle unless I was the absolute best," he recalled.
Regarding his Olympic memories he said: "The first [gold medal] was one of the coolest [the 400m individual medley at the Athens 2004 Olympics in world-record time]. Sort of never, ever forgetting exactly where my mom and I shared that first gold medal through a chain-link fence in Athens, Greece, because I was unable to get to my mom. So I passed it through this little chain-link fence [while holding a peanut butter sandwich and telling his mom, "Look what I did," as has been reported often since 2004]. I think 2008, probably 200m free. I look at that race, and today, still, and say that's probably my best race I've ever swam in my life from start to finish. It was kind of over at 15 meters. I was in the best shape possible. My stroke was perfect. Everything about that race, to me, was the best. [Phelps broke his world record in that event by nine tenths of a second]"
Phelps, who is a brand ambassador for the Special Olympics and took part in the march-past during the opening ceremony of the Special Olympics Games on Saturday, recalled his experiences in school where he was mocked at.
"As a kid, I was picked on. I was made fun of"I used to remember kids flicking [my ears] in school. I can still remember to this day, I remember the teacher and her name in middle school who told me that I would never succeed in anything that I would ever put my mind to."
"I stood right at the bottom of the tunnel and watched all the athletes come out. You could feel the energy that was coming out"I guess I kind of thought back to what it would have been like if I was able to experience that [Phelps who has never attended an Olympic Opening Ceremony]"It just sent chills up my body," Phelps said.
The ongoing Special Olympics Games features 25 sports. Hosts USA, with 491 athletes, has the biggest contingent at the Games while India have sent 338 athletes and Russia have 252 athletes taking part.
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