That summer, a year before the Olympics, the Central Government in Beijing dispatches China's best coaches to Tianjin to work with him. But he baffles them. He is a phenomenon of nature, they say. His form is already so perfect, his times so fast--and regularly chipping off a few tenths to surpass his own benchmark. They are afraid to change anything, afraid they might derail the vehicle of China's promise.
What can go wrong?
What can go wrong is Michael Phelps. Training at the same 39o of latitude, 12 time zones away (in either direction), Phelps is 15 cm taller than Chang Yun. Each of his flat, open hands pulls a column of water 225 square centimeters in cross-section, compared to Yun's 182. Phelps is such a natural swimmer that, as rumor has it, he can hold his edge with a mere 90 minutes workout in the pool each day. Yun is not training to race with the boys in the Hebei Provincials. He is not training to lead the Chinese swim team. He is training to take on Michael Phelps.
Along with big business and media contracts, spying is also a part of Olympic culture. T minus six months, and Yun's average time for 100 m freestyle in practice is a full second behind Phelps. Both athletes vary considerably from one trial to the next, so that Yun at his best iss faster than Phelps on an off-day. Yun's coach sees this as cause for hope, but it is not in his nature to leave anything to chance.
A phone call, a whisper down the chain of command, and funding comes through from Beijing to engage Franz Seidlen, to pay him whatever it might take to bring the legendary German swimming coach to Hebei for half a year. Seidlen was an engineer before he was a coach. The subtle innovations he has introduced to competitive swimming have been recognized and adopted the world over, and the whole sport is said to be an astounding 2.4% faster than it had been with the pre-Seidlen ideals of form and technique. Discipline is his middle name, but many coaches can be inspiring taskmasters. What sets Seidlen apart is a detailed knowledge of anatomy, and an uncanny ability to identify the individual modifications that can turn anyone's genetic endowment to best advantage.
No one is surprised when Seidlen arrives in Tianjin carrying a life-size map of Yun's body plan, which he has already studied in every detail. No one is surprised when he installs underwater videography to film Yun in motion. But it raises eyebrows when Seidlen hangs a picture of Phelps on the wall next to the pool. As time goes on, Phelps's pictures joins Yun in the locker room, in the wallpaper of Yun's cell phone, and finally on his bedroom wall.
T minus three months, an effigy of Phelps arrives to swim alongside Yun. A product of Italian artists, German engineering and Chinese manufacture, this state-of-the-art robot bridges the uncanny valley, at once to frighten and inspire Yun as nothing else can. The robot does not actually propel itself through the pool with perfectly-coordinated arm and leg motions, but it moves arms and legs in a form that is convincing enough through the splashes, and the variable-speed propeller can be programmed to anticipate Phelps's swimming pace. Training alongside "Phelps" becomes the core of Yun's daily routine.
T minus two months, and the pace and regimen of Yun's training are beginning to seem inhuman. One weekend, he attends a party with school buddies, falls ill and misses five days of practice. Seidlen brings Yun a box of little pills. "Prolintane" does not have a translation in his English-Chinese dictionary, but all Yun's 17 years have taught him to trust his teachers. His strokes feel longer now, and the laps feel shorter. It is easier to swim long hours without losing concentration. It is easier to draw forth motivation for each final sprint.
He has strange dreams. Phelps has moved into Yun's psyche as a constant companion. Sometimes they are buddies, riding bikes together through the Trianjin traffic. Yun dreams he is in a boxing ring, sparring with Phelps. He lands a punch, knocks Phelps out, but it is Yun who falls unconscious to the floor.
As the summer approaches, the Olympic competition itself has begun to take on the aura of a dream. Yun no longer distinguishes his anticipation from reality, his dreams from accomplished fact. Seidlen encourages him to repeat as a mantra, -'å ç ----è'"åˆ , "I have already triumphed." The attention and publicity add to his sense of unreality. Certainly, it is not he in whom these people are interested. Yun is unmoored, carried downstream, no longer aware who he is, no longer a living agent with will of his own. At least, it feels that way.
It is in the final runoffs of the 800-meter free-style that he is paired with Phelps in the same heat. Michael Phelps is not a robot but a boy like himself, gawky, diffident and self-conscious when he is not in the water. Michael looks right past him, over the top of his head. But then, a double-take. He turns to Yun and their eyes meet a long moment. I have known you before. We have been close, perhaps in a past life.
The starting block, the gun that launches them in the water"it has all been lived already too many times to be regarded as a feature of the present. Yun is swimming the way he has always swum, every stroke a perfect clone. He is aware only that his heart is pounding with an unusual insistence.
Then, approaching the fourth lap flip turn, something happens that shakes Yun out of his trance. Nine strokes has always been 9 strokes. But this time, he is at the wall in 8 -. This is good. He knows it means he has been swimming faster than he has ever swum in his life. This is terrifying. The wall is too far away, and then it is too close. His legs, scrunched up against the wall, offer a slightly stronger push, but not enough to make up for the time it has taken to close that extra half meter, to dive in a way that is ever so imperceptibly unsmooth. Precious hundredths have been lost, Yun knows. What can this do to his rhythm, his confidence, his breathing? Yes, his breathing. With the unaccustomed turn, Yun's face is under water one full stroke longer than his perfect habit has come to expect. Oxygen efficiency is Yun's trump card, his one advantage over Michael. Oxygen is what Yun needs, and now his straining muscles feel the lack of oxygen like a flooded Mercedes diesel on a January morning. Yun's discipline, earned in 100,000 laps of clockwork precision, would be the envy of any Zen master, and now his muscles are screaming for air. He focuses his intention on directing every red blood cell to those shoulder muscles that are even now issuing their non-negotiable demand.
It was in that moment that the miracle occurred, the mircale toward which this narrative has been directed, the miracle that this story's author needs to imagine if he is to come to terms with Cosmic Consciousness and a personal understanding of transmigration of souls.
Yun's focus was complete. Or maybe he lost focus. Or maybe he only dreamed because his brain lacked sufficient oxygen to support a waking self. But as Yun related it to me more than three years after that contest, he became Michael. His awareness seemed familiar, his self undoubtably his own. But the sensations, the nerve signals were from Phelps's body, not his own. He swam with the same drive, the same passion, the conviction that his people had invested their dreams in this race, in his opportunity, in his destiny to stage an upset victory for the glory of all China. His people expected him to win and it was not an option to let them down.
The pace, the glide of the water, the splash were all perfectly familiar to him. But the race itself was now almost effortless. With this smooth-shaven, extra-long body, these extra-large hands like canoe paddles in the water, he was gliding faster than he ever knew, but there was no pain, no screaming desire to let go and rest, no struggle to suppress the desire for more air, more air, more air. Compared to the beginning of the race--even compared to a hard sprint at the end of a training day--this was a breeze, a piece of cake. Chang/Phelps glided forward with the grace of a slalom skier.
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