TEMPE, Ariz. — Nearly a week into their most recent therapeutic reunion, Michael Phelps and Grant Hackett, two giants of Olympic swimming, sat down to breakfast at a packed restaurant and wondered how they would explain themselves to their children someday.
The conversations they foresaw had nothing to do with Phelps’s record-shattering medal haul or with Hackett’s defiance of debilitating illnesses during a decade-long dominance of the 1,500-meter freestyle, the most grueling event in the pool, that earned him the nickname Captain Courageous from his fellow Australians.
They were reliving dark moments, times when they posed a danger to themselves and others.