How Michael Phelps beats the world’s best swimmers at the wall

Nobody can come close to Michael Phelps’ career in the pool, but it took the American a ton of close calls to get there. Even for the most decorated Olympian of all time, staying ahead of the competition often meant winning by the narrowest of margins.

Phelps will be swimming in what’s likely his final individual Olympic final Friday night in Rio, and it’s a race where he’s had more tight wins than any other. The men’s 100-meter butterfly is one of the most competitive, exciting events in international swimming. Phelps has long been the man to beat, and he’s had some real adversaries along the way.

The fact that Phelps has regularly pulled off these victories helps show why he’s become so successful over the years. When the elite swimmers around the world can all post times within a few seconds of each other, it’s those little details that end up separating the Olympic qualifiers from the gold medalists.

Phelps has become a master at the details. He’s not just an overwhelming collection of physical gifts, although he is also that. When you look at all of those gold medals, and specifically his dominance of the 100 butterfly, the 31-year-old’s ability to finish off close races is a pretty important part of how he did it.

Phelps has won loads of close races over the years, but the 100-meter butterfly is a good place to focus in on his ability to finish. This is typically one of the tightest races at each Olympics, yet Phelps has managed to win three consecutive gold medals. After winning the 200-meter individual medley gold Thursday night, he’ll have a chance to become the first Olympian to four-peat gold medals in two different events on Friday.

But it’s astonishing how close Phelps is to not having any gold medals at all. His winning margins in the 100m butterfly over the past three Olympics combine to just 0.28 seconds, and the vast majority of that comes from 2012. His victories in 2004 and 2008 were razor thin.

None of those victories were closer than in 2008, when Phelps beat Serbia’s Milorad Cavic for gold. Cavic actually touched the wall first, but not hard enough for the Omega timing system to register. Phelps ended up sneaking in for the victory. “There is a big, big, big difference ... between touching that pad and pushing the pad,” said Christophe Berthaud, Omega’s general manager at the time. “It’s for sure -- and the video also shows it -- that Cavic touched the pad before Phelps, but he was sliding while Phelps was rushing on the pad ... and the difference between them is really a hundredth of a second. All the records ... in the system show this.”

Think about that for a second. Phelps won a gold medal in an Olympic race where he didn’t touch the wall first because the other guy didn’t touch it hard enough. It’s hard to fathom a closer result, and Cavic obviously doesn’t remember the moment fondly. “I never really addressed it, never really talked about it,” he recently told Vice Sports. “For me, I very much embrace the fact that what was done cannot be changed. But after that, everybody told me I was cheated out of the gold. Everybody.”

That victory might seem miraculous, but for Phelps, these amazing close calls aren’t out of the ordinary. There’s nobody better at closing out a race hard than him.

That’s always the question with Phelps, it seems. How does he do it? There’s just so much about his career that seems too remarkable to believe, especially when you consider how close some of his wins have been. Time and again, he’s managed to edge out the world’s best swimmers by fractions of a second. At a certain point, you realize it’s not a coincidence.

Phelps is an astonishingly gifted athlete, but he’s also trained extremely hard to perfect his mechanics and push his endurance levels. Sure, the long wingspan naturally benefits him, but there are much smaller swimmers who put up amazing times, too. Japan’s Kosuke Hagino, who is 5’10, just won gold in the men’s 400-meter individual medley in Rio. Just about everyone in the Olympics is an incredibly athletic person, so Phelps has figured out how to perfect the parts of his game that allow him to push away from the pack.

Specifically, Phelps is a monster near the walls. Nobody is better at turning between laps, and as you saw in the 2008 final, his ability to make a hard final push is unmatched. His turns are glorious to watch, and thanks to all that endurance training, he’s able to maintain his rhythm and push toward the end when some other swimmers might be running low in the tank.

If you need an example of Phelps’ otherworldly turning ability, check out his turn on the second leg of the 4x100-meter relay in Rio:

After that race, Bob Bowman, Phelps’ coach, said it was “probably the best turn that’s ever been done underwater.”

Combine that ability with Phelps’ power, endurance, mechanical consistency and drive to win, and you have the greatest swimmer of all time.

All those close calls, all those gold medals, all those Subway commercials all lead up to Friday night. It’s going to be Phelps’ last time swimming in an Olympic individual final, and once again, a stacked field awaits. Singapore’s Joseph Schooling won the semifinals by 0.60 seconds, and Phelps’ longtime rivals le Clos and Laszlo Cseh will be swimming as well.

Phelps only finished fifth in the semifinals, but he was likely trying to save some energy. When it’s time for the final, you can get that Phelps will be ready to top the 51.58-second time he put up in the semis. The big question is whether anyone else can step up their game like Phelps certainly will.

With a fourth consecutive gold medal on the line, Phelps has a chance at history. If he pulls it off, it’ll probably be a close one.