10-Year-Old 'Superman' Shatters a Michael Phelps Record
Naming your kid Clark Kent is a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, the kid could be Superman, driven to feats of strength worthy of the binary hero-and-villain world of Golden Age comic books.
On the other hand, the weight of expectations could be the kid’s Kryptonite as, unable to distinguish himself, he grows up to simply put “C. Kent Lastname” on his business cards to distance himself from his nerd parents’ hopes for him.
Ten-year-old Clark Kent Apuada of Salinas, California, falls firmly into that first camp.
Apuada, whose name came about as a result of his mother liking the name Clark and having Superman as her favorite comic book superhero, competed in the 100-meter butterfly event for boys 10 and under at the Far Western Long Course Championship on Sunday.
He posted a time of 1:09.38, handily winning the event and breaking the previous record of 1:10.48 in the process.
The previous record-holder? Michael Phelps. Yes, that Michael Phelps, who won 28 medals, 23 of them gold, across four Olympic Games between 2004 and 2016.
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Back in 1995, when Phelps was just 10 years old himself, he set that record at the Far West.
The decorated Olympian congratulated Clark on Twitter.
Big congrats to #clarkkent for smashing that meet record!!! Keep it up dude !!#dreambig
— Michael Phelps (@MichaelPhelps) August 1, 2018
Clark has had Phelps in his sights for quite a while now.
The kid took to the water at a young age like the yellowfin tuna common in the waters of his Filipino-American family’s ancestral homeland.
And at the age of 7, when his mom, Cynthia, signed him up at the Monterey County Aquatic Team, young Superman took a look at the records for the Far Western, saw Phelps’ 1:10.48, and said, “I can beat that.”
Three years later, cue the John Williams soundtrack.
Young Clark even had a bit of Michael Jordan in his story to go with Michael Phelps.
Clark’s mom told reporters her son had been sick a week before the event, but he wasn’t going to let a little thing like an illness stop him from achieving a goal he’d set three years ago.
Instead, when they make a movie about this kid’s life, some screenwriter will probably decide to embellish it and put him on the edge of death just to set up the “Daniel LaRusso is gonna fight!” moment.
Speaking of the script for his biopic, it should come as no surprise what Clark’s dreaming of next.
“Paris 2024 or Los Angeles 2028,” he said. “This record has motivated me to keep swimming, to keep striving and do everything I can to get to that elite level.”
So the kid’s media-savvy too. That’s a response right out of a Kevin Durant postgame interview.
And for the cherry on the sundae, Clark Kent’s got a super piece of advice for his fellow kids, and for adults too.
“Never give up on your dreams,” he said. “Never.”
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