Missy Franklin: The Greatest Female Swimmer of All Time?

Nicknamed the ‘ Missile’ the now 18 year old Missy Franklin arrived on the big stage at the London Olympics last year where she won four gold medals and a bronze and was immediately tipped as the heir to the throne of the Greatest Olympian of All Time ‘Michael Phelps’.  In fact, the pundits rechristened her as the ‘Female Michael Phelps’ and so far she has proved them right as she has truly transformed herself into the Golden Girl of Swimming.

In the post Phelpsian era the sport of Swimming was in desperate need of a Superstar and Missy has certainly taken the sport to newer heights as never before a woman was hailed as the ‘Wonder Woman’ by her own competitors in the swimming pool. And she isn’t the ‘New Poster Girl’  without a reason – on Sunday Franklin became the most successful female swimmer of all time at the World Championships as she joined the Australian Libby Trickett as the only other woman who has claimed nine gold medals at the Worlds.

In addition to that, the youngster who resides in Colorado also broke the record of her countrywoman Tracy Caulkins who triumphed on five different occasions during the 1978 World Championships and Trickett who matched the same streak in 2007, as Missy helped her American teammates in clinching the gold medal in 4x100m medley relay on the final day of the competition in Barcelona.

After winning the 100m backstroke ahead of the lady from Down Under Emily Seebohm, the 200m freestyle over Beijing Olympics gold medalist Federica Pellegrini of Italy, the 200m backstroke in a new championship record time of 2:04.76 and  finishing on the podium with the 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relay squads, Franklin was disappointed with her performance in the 100m freestyle as she missed out on a medal in that race and wanted to make up for that on the closing day of the World Aquatics Championships at the hilltop swimming arena situated in the Catalan capital.

In a fitting reply to all her rivals, Missy swam the first, backstroke leg of the 4x100m medley relay at the Palau Sant Jordi and led from the front in that one as she recorded a time of 58.39 sec for her part of the race and her teammates Jessica Hardy, Dana Vollmer and Megan Romano later responded with equal poise to nudge out the Aussies to accomplish victory that gave Franklin a record breaking 6^th gold medal at the Worlds. The California native joined an exclusive club of swimmers – Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz, Ian Thorpe and the East German icon Kristin Otto, who bagged at least six gold medals at the Olympics or the World Championships.

Franklin’s record breaking spree can be considered as the beginning of a new dawn in the sport as she has plenty of time left to break many such records. After all she is still in her teens, and if she can take care of herself and keep working on her fitness, she will reign the pool in the next two editions of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and in 2020.

According to the experts just like Michael Phelps, Missy has got a perfect body for a swimmer. The reality is that she has too many similarities with Phelps to be ignored – like the 18 time Gold medal winner who appeared to be an Atlantic Sailfish cruising like a tornado towards its prey, Franklin has a rocket start to her races as well.

Furthermore, Phelps stood at 193cm tall, boasted a wingspan of 200cm and the size of his feet was 14, on the other hand Missy’s is 185cm tall, has a wingspan of 193cm and moves in the pool with the help of her feet that are sized 13. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that her natural body frame seems to have been developed by engineers on the request of the USA Swimming Instructors.

The way she is going about her business in the pool, it won’t be long before she would be in the reckoning of being crowned the greatest Female Swimmer of All Time – after all, she has already picked up four gold medals in the British capital and has just equalized the celebrated Aussie Libby Trickett’s record to be the most decorated swimmer at the World Aquatics Meet and is well on course to emerge as the ‘Undisputed Empress of the Pool’ or the ‘Water Fairy’  in three years time in Brazil.