Cseh watches his loss to Phelps at the 2008 Olympics for energy

When Laszlo Cseh finds himself tired from travel or training, he cues a video of the 200-meter-butterfly final at the 2008 Olympics. Read The New York Times.

“Sometimes when I go to training in the morning and I get tired or I want to sleep more and I feel I need some boost, I watch it,” Cseh said. He added, “I watch it a lot of times.”

He wonders if his challenges with Michael Phelps and now Ryan Lochte makes his career the worst of timing or the best.

“I think a lot about that,” Cseh said. “Maybe if there is no Phelps, no Lochte, I’m not as good. They make me better and the other swimmers better because of how fast they are swimming.”

There’s more interesting stuff in that article, like how his father Laszlo Sr. happened to be a top backstroker at the same time as the impenetrable Roland Matthes, who did not loose a backstroke race from 1967 to 1974.

And on how John Naber finally beat Matthes by choosing not to chase him.