Washington, July 23(ANI): Michael Phelps, who created history by winning eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, has now admitted to losing passion and hunger for swimming after his unprecedented success at those Games.
Phelps, just three medals shy of breaking the record for most Olympic career medals, said he has now regained the same zeal for swimming, and is preparing well to repeat his feats at the London Olympics.
"After Beijing, I mean, there's countless times where I've just wanted to be like, 'I don't want to do this anymore.' I don't want to go to the pool every day," Phelps said during an exclusive interview with CBS.
"It was hard, because I didn't know if the passion or the fire was still inside of me. And it took awhile for me to actually realize it myself. Bob couldn't tell me, my mom couldn't tell me. They couldn't help me find it," he added.
When asked if its still the same case, Phelps replied: "No, because one, we're so close. And two, because I'm actually enjoying it. I'm swimming well again."
In January 2009 newspapers around the world published a photo of Phelps with a marijuana pipe, and the photo tarnished his image.
Phelps confesses that it was the worst phase of his life.
"I mean, that was probably like the lowest point in my career. I think being able to see how it affected the close people around me, I think that was the thing that hurt the most," Phelps said.
"It was just stupid. You know, it, it, I put myself in a bad position. And I probably went through like a huge like depression phase, where I was just like, 'What am I doing?'," he added.
While paparazzi staked him out, USA Swimming suspended Phelps from competition for three months. (ANI)
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