This is Phelps. He is a 13 year old kid with dark green eyes and a handsome face. He lives in Los Angeles, and is currently studying in 7th grade. He has a wealthy family. Phelps favorite sport is swimming, so he is looking to join a team.
"Who is that kid?" The members of the Superman Swimming Team asked.
There was a new kid, Phelps, wanting to join the team.
"Hi, Phelps," said the coach with his loud voice."I am coach John. These are your teammates, Michael, Ryan, Charlie, Jordan, George, and Bob. They are all currently in 8th grade, so you are the smallest. Michael is the captain, so you can ask for his help at anytime."
And so practice started. They started off doing some freestyles, then some kicking drills and body movement drills in water. Phelps could not keep up to his teammate's speed and was laughed and bullied.
"Do you really know how to swim?"demanded George.
"Get out of the team, man!" shouted Ryan with lots of frustration." You'll lower the team's speed and skill!"
Phelps was really sad and angry. He had loved swimming all his life, but he never thought that his teammates could be this bad. So, he made a decision. He decided that he wanted to work extremely hard to catch up on his teammates and to earn their respect.
Practice didn't improve a lot after, but at least Phelps was getting faster and faster at swimming. He was always the one working the hardest. He usually stays at the pool to do more drills even after class, such as the kicking and body movement drills to help him know more about how to use his whole body to swim instead of only his leg and arms. He was always the first one to enter the pool, and the last one to leave it. The coach was really proud of him.
And so finally, his opportunity to prove himself finally came. There was a state middle school swimming competition in Los Angeles, and the Superman Swimming Team had attended it. But, unfortunately, he was not in their relay roster, so he competed in several individual events. First up was the 50 meters freestyle. This is the first time Phelps has ever competed in a swimming competition before, so he was extremely nervous. When Phelps jumped into the water, he swam as fast as he could and was the first place in his group with a time of 27.91 seconds. When the final results came out, he was delighted to see that he had won 2nd place, a silver medal. The next 3 events Phelps competed in went pretty well too, where he won a bronze medal each for 100 m breastroke, 100 m butterfly, and 200 freestyle.
"Look at how much Phelps has improved since he came here!"said coach John to Phelps teammates."You guys should all learn from him!"
Meanwhile, while he was very successful, his teammates were not. First of all, they almost failed to qualify into the final round in relays. And also, none of them won any awards for the individual events. Not even the captain, Michael did. The coach was very angry, so he decided to put Phelps on the 4*100 relay team to replace Charlie. He wasn't pleased.
The relay started. The Superman Swimming Team had a pretty good start, since it was the captain, Michael, swimming the 100 first. But, they were only 5th when it was Phelps turn, the last one to swim the 100, to swim.
When Phelps jumped into the water, the gap between them and the other teams suddenly became smaller. Phelps was sprinting at breakneck speed. At the 75 meter turn, Phelps was already in 2nd place and was only 5 meters behind the 1st place. Both teams were shouting nervously. They were tied at the 90 meter mark. 10 meters, 9 meters, 8 meters, and finally both swimmers touched the wall. Phelps had won the race by 2 one-hundredth of a second and helped the team claim their first ever swimming title! The whole team the coach, the fans, and his parents went to congratulate him. His teammates even held him up into the air.
"You're our team leader now!"said Michael.
"Yeah!"
"You were brilliant!"
Phelps was happy now. At least now he is famous and respected.
