WINNER OF SEVEN OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALS

Winning.

Mark Spitz was a precocious swimmer. At the age of ten he held seventeen national age-group swimming records and practiced ninety minutes a day. He was encouraged by his father, a steel-company executive, who impressed one message upon him relentlessly: "Swimming isn't everything, winning is."

Early Disappointment.

Mark Spitz was seventeen in 1967 when he set his first world record, 4:10.6 in the 400-meter freestyle, and he was widely regarded to be as talented as his Santa Clara swimming teammate Don Schollander, who had won four gold medals at the 1964 Olympics. Spitz went to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City with lofty expectations, and he came away disappointed. He had qualified for three individual events and three relays, but he won only two gold medals, both in relay events. "I had the worst meet of my life," he told a reporter. So he worked harder. In the...