At local event, Spitz says there is lots of pressure on Phelps

Mark Spitz insists he wasn’t bitter last year when he lost swimming’s most sacred record. He feels the same way now, 15 months after Michael Phelps cemented a spot in Olympic history with eight gold medals, one more than Spitz won in 1972.

“It’s sort of like I’m the first man on the moon,” Spitz said. “He’s the second man on the moon. He collected more rocks.”

Like his scruffy mustache that captivated the world, Spitz’s record for the most golds in a single Olympics is gone, so he doesn’t lose much sleep over it, he told about 850 people Wednesday during a Peak Vista Community Health Centers breakfast at The Broadmoor.

The seven golds Spitz, 59, claimed in Munich – he broke world records in all seven races, four individual events and three relays – came after a strange conversation with a Russian coach mesmerized by Spitz’s mustache.

Spitz had completed training the evening before his first race when the coach asked him, “Doesn’t it slow you down?” Spitz cracked, “It doesn’t. It deflects water away from my mouth.” The next year, Spitz said, “Every single Russian male swimmer had a mustache. And unfortunately, a couple East German women swimmers, too.”

The mustache created an ideal decoy, taking the spotlight off his swimming for the early parts of his gold-medal haul. A similar tactic likely won’t help Phelps in 2012, even if he keeps the beard he’s sporting this week at a World Cup in Stockholm. Phelps is the most decorated Olympian, with 14 golds, and he has 16 overall.

“Of course, there’s a lot of pressure,” said Spitz, adding that he believes “Michael is not a perfect person, and neither am I,” a reference to Phelps being unknowingly pictured last November inhaling from a marijuana pipe. “People are going to expect a lot from him.”

Spitz said barely losing to American teammate Doug Russell in the 100-meter butterfly at the 1968 Olympics was “the sole reason I went on to win seven gold medals. That lurked in the back of my mind.” When Phelps captured six golds in 2004, Spitz maintains Phelps thought “he was a failure because he hadn’t accomplished what he was capable of.”

“It took 36 years for somebody to figure out how to become successful in a way that was beyond not only their capacity but anything that had been done before,” Spitz said. “My greatest accolade wasn’t that I won seven gold medals. I inspired somebody to be a little better as a person, a little better as an athlete.”