Phelps draws many fans at book release

NEW YORK – Michael Phelps is thrilled all the attention he received during the Beijing Olympics raised the profile of his sport. Some people, though, were sick of all the coverage.

As he was racking up a record eight gold medals, Phelps reminisced Tuesday, he kept getting joking text messages from friends from high school. They’d say: “Get off the TV. I don’t want to see your face anymore. I’m not turning the TV on until the Olympics are over.”

Plenty of people in the New York area had no such trouble Tuesday. They couldn’t get enough of Phelps. Fans started lining up outside a midtown Manhattan Barnes & Noble at 12:30 a.m. – 12 hours early – to get his book signed on the day it was released.

Then a crowd of about 2,000 turned out for a talk at Adelphi University on Long Island that night. Tickets had sold out in 90 minutes. Donna de Varona, the Olympic swimming gold medalist and broadcaster, chatted with Phelps for about 45 minutes on a variety of topics.

Phelps revealed how competitive games of Risk and Spades would get among members of the U.S. swim team each night in the Olympic Village.

“I can’t tell you how many arguments we got into over Risk, over who knew the right rules,” he said. “It got really intense.”