Swimming’s 2014 Person of the Year: Michael Phelps

To see all of the 2014 Swammy Award winners, presented by TYR, click here.

The “Person of the Year” award is given to the most significant person of 2014 in swimming. The award is not a judgement of good or bad, it is simply a judgement of significance and impact. Unlike our other awards, this one doesn’t necessarily carry with it the tag of honor, though it certainly can. The purpose of the Person of the Year award is to recognize what drove the story  of the sport, because that’s what sports are: a story.

2014 Honoree: Michael Phelps

The year, the year, the year. Michael Phelps had one of the most interesting and roller-coaster rides of a season that anyone has had in the history of the sport in 2014.

Phelps had an impact on every part of the sport in 2014. He signed a new suit deal with an underdog brand – AquaSphere – for which he hopes to do what Michael Jordan once did for a little-known brand called “Nike”. He sold out meets in a blink, he won gold medals at USA Swimming’s biggest meet, and his DUI arrest will not only be a second black mark on his career, but it brought attention and conversation to an issue of drinking and driving that is a big, if unspoken, problem in swimming. Phelps’ 2014 will have a ripple for decades upon the sport of swimming.

For some fans, 2014 was Phelps’ downfall. For others, 2014 strengthened their love for the winningest swimmer in history  but for all, the biggest story in swimming in 2014 was Phelps.

In the early months of the year, the rumors were flying. Phelps was back in the drug-testing pool, which meant the comeback was on, but ‘where’ he would swim his first race since the 2012 Olympics was still unannounced.

In early April, USA Swimming confirmed that the return would happen at the Mesa stop of the Grand Prix series, and within 48 hours of the announcement, that meet was sold out (and tickets were being sold for higher than face value online and by scalpers – yes, scalpers for a swim meet).

At that meet, the result didn’t come out quite as Phelps might have hoped, as he fell to his main rival Ryan Lochte (race video here). The time, though, put him 5th in the world and showed definitively that he was focused and ready for racing.

A month later, he picked up the first win of his return by taking the 100 fly at the Charlotte Grand Prix (albeit with Lochte absent on injury) – (race video here).

Phelps was the talk again at Nationals when he failed to win a single race, although his runner-up finish to Tom Shields in the 100 fly was enough to put him on the Pan Pacs team. In the Gold Coast he won the 100 fly, and ended the season with the world’s fastest time in that event (51.17 from Nationals prelims).

He also took home gold medals in the 800 free relay and 400 medley relay, plus silvers in the 200 IM and 400 free relay.

That would’ve been a fitting end to his comeback year, but that was far from the end of the excitement. On September 29th, we posted an article by Coleman Hodges titled “Michael Phelps Year in Review: Is the Comeback a Success?”

Little did we know that on September 30th, less than 24 hours later, he would be back in the news for the wrong reasons. Phelps was arrested at 1:40AM the next day for driving nearly twice the speed limit and blowing a .16 on a breath test – twice the legal limit in his home state of Maryland – and charged with DUI, among other charges.

That story dominated national headlines, both in swimming and out of swimming, for much of the rest of the year. Phelps was eventually suspended by USA Swimming for 6 months, withdrew from the 2015 World Championships team, and was admitted to rehab.

In the midst of this chaos, he was still named USA Swimming’s Male Swimmer of the Year at the 2014 Golden Goggles Awards, but was not present to accept his award personally. That speaks to the kind of year it was for Phelps – he was the best American male swimmer, but had a very dark year overall.

He’s emerged now on the other side, and is planning to continue training toward a hopeful Rio Olympic bid. He pleaded guilty to the charges and received a suspended sentence plus probation, and just over a week ago spoke out publicly, through his Twitter account, for the first time.

In that message, Phelps called the last three months “some of the hardest time I’ve ever gone through, and the biggest learning experience that I have ever had.”

He says that he learned a lot about himself, and now has the “tools to continue to learn and grow” from the arrest.

And when bad things happen, that’s the best that we can hope for from anybody: improvement, learning, as much atonement as is possible, reconciliation, and growth.

That’s growth that will be tested in a 2015 where Phelps will have little to race for aside from his reputation and his fans. He will have an opportunity to prove that he means it when he says he wants to grow the sport, that he wants to be a better person, that he wants to show what he’s learned about himself. In 2015, that’s all he has to prove in the public eye, but more importantly in his mind’s eye.