Yeah, my friends call me Mike, Michael or just my last name.
I have reached a place in my life where I need to sit down and say, 'Well, what do I do? What's best for me?' I need to look into options for the future.
I always thought, it would be neat to make the Olympic team.
I like to just think of myself as a normal person who just has a passion, has a goal and a dream and goes out and does it. And that's really how I've always lived my life.
Any Olympic sport is great to watch.
I try to separate my personal life from swimming.
Even in high school, I'd tell my mom I was sick of swimming and wanted to try to play golf. She wasn't too happy. She'd say, 'Think about this.' And I'd always end up getting back in the pool.
So, you know, if, if I wanted to get up and just play golf one day, I would just get up and play golf. If I wanted to go to Vegas, I would just get up and go to Vegas.
I consider myself normal. I've spent 20 years in the pool. I consider that something that's normal.
I think everybody pees in the pool. It's kind of a normal thing to do for swimmers.
For so long, I looked at myself as literally a kid who was talented who would go up and down the pool. That's it. Nothing else. Very few people knew who I really was.
People say to me, 'You're so lucky. You get to see the world.' But I don't. I go to the hotel and to the pools and back again. That's it.
I am 26 and, and I don't recover as fast as I have in the past.
I learned how fast you can go from being an international hero to being a reference in a joke on a late night talk show.
Once I retire, I'm retiring. I'm done.
Every sponsor I've had has been something that fit my lifestyle, fit my personality.
I got the stamina. I can close.
I want to continue the sport of swimming. I'm not going to give up until I think it's reached where I want it to go.
If you want to be the best, you have to do things that other people aren't willing to do.
I want to go to the World Cup. I want to go to the Masters. I want to go... anywhere.
