Future Olympian?

Four years ago during the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Ryan became fascinated with Michael Phelps. Yes, Ryan was only four years old, but every time the TV showed the Olympic swimming pool, Ryan would say, “Is that Michael Phelps?” If it was an event in which Michael Phelps was participating, my little four-year-old would be glued to the TV until the event ended. Ryan had just started taking swimming lessons, and would tell me that he was Michael Phelps every time he was in the pool! Fast forward to now – the 2008 Olympics in Bejing. Four more years of Ryan taking swimming lessons and becoming a better swimmer; four more years of Ryan understanding the significance of the Olympics and of the difficulty of the events; four more years for Michael Phelps to prepare for this moment. Once again, whenever the TV shows the pool, Ryan asks if it is one of Michael Phelps’ events. Actually, most of the time, he knows exactly when Michael Phelps will be swimming. If he is, we stay home and watch the event.

Did you hear us screaming on Sunday night when the men won the 4 x 100 relay (or on Friday night when Michael won the 100 meter Butterfly by 1/100 of a second, for that matter)? We were. Ryan has been doing his imitation of Michael Phelps after the relay win all week. (Even if you didn’t see the event, I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures. This one was from SportsIllustrated.com.)
Most of you know that Ryan has a love of superheroes. He has several superhero costumes, and rotates through them. Although I haven’t let him see the new Batman movie, he has spent much of the summer in his Batman costume. So we chuckled when my mom saw this Bagley cartoon in the Salt Lake Tribune this week…
Oh, and this is the wallpaper on Ryan’s laptop…
Ryan is a great little swimmer. Since he was a baby, we’ve spent time in the water, and he has a love of the water and an innate comfort in the water. He loves swimming lessons, and is pretty consistently the best swimmer in class. In fact, his teacher last session wrote on his final evaluation: “Ryan has the best front crawl that I have seen all summer!” He was pretty happy about that. Today Ryan’s teacher told the class that they would be starting on the Butterfly stroke. She mentioned that it was a difficult stroke, but that they needed to have a good attitude and try it. Ryan immediately answered, “Michael Phelps does the Butterfly stroke!” Yes, he does. And if Michael Phelps does it, Ryan will do it.

Here are some fun pictures of Ryan’s swimming lessons throughout the summer…