One doesn't want to take credit for these sorts of things but you should know Michael Phelps had not won a single Olympic gold medal before he met me.
We made quite a pair: the one, an elite athlete with a voracious appetite; the other, a promising American swimmer.
It's strange to look back five years, to the day I interviewed Phelps in a corridor at Moana Pool, and realise he is now acclaimed the greatest swimmer - indeed, Olympian - of all time.
Then, he was a callow, gum-chewing 18-year-old spending a week in Dunedin as part of Speedo's elite team, hanging out at both Moana Pool and the flume at the University of Otago.
From memory, the visit was all very hush-hush and it was only via a tip-off we managed to arrange an interview.
He was not quite a superstar, though he'd already competed at one Olympics and won four titles at that year's world championships, but I must have known he was going to be big because I asked photographer Craig Baxter to snap a shot of the two of us. (Can't find it.)He shook my hand, spoke clearly and politely for about 5min, and then was gone.
Reading over the subsequent feature I wrote, two quotes stand out.-"We stay fairly anonymous.
There are so many other sports that get everything over us," Phelps said.
Goodbye, anonymity.
"Right now, I just want one gold medal," he went on.
Greedy sod.
He's up to 12, and should get 13 today and 14 tomorrow.
I also wrote that Phelps did not have "the type of strapping frame that suggests an imposing superfish".
Which is just weird when you look at the massive chest he now supports.
The caption on the feature said: "Greatness walks among us . . .".
It certainly did.
