Michael Phelps is training again, but he hasn’t committed to another Olympic run. That doesn’t mean his mother, Debbie Phelps, can’t dream of Rio 2016.
She was asked about Phelps returning to the North Baltimore Aquatic Club pool by a Baltimore radio station in a story about a fundraiser she’s spearheading to benefit area moms.
“I don’t if we’re going to Rio, but I know that, according to the Baltimore Sun and out there in social media, Michael did make an announcement about being back in the pool,” she told WBAL News. “Where that leads him, I don’t know, I’m hoping it does lead us to Brazil.
“But, you know, athletes, children, composers, artists have to love what they do. Michael has a love for his sport, a passion for his sport. I know when he went to Barcelona for world champs last year [July 2013], I watched his face. He has such eagerness about where the sport of swimming is going to go. I’m supporting him all the way as his mom.
“I would love to go Rio.”
Debbie Phelps, the education foundation director for Baltimore County Public Schools, has been hoping her son would go to Rio since before the London Olympics.
“I want to go to Rio in 2016,” she said on “60 Minutes” in May 2012. “I do. He told me he’d send me there on vacation, he told me. But you know, I was like, I’m like, ‘Come on, Michael just a 50 freestyle.’
“What happens if your mom, you know, after London, after 12 months goes by and says, ‘You know, I’ve always wanted to go to Rio?’”
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