In May 2016, before Michael Phelps took his record tally of Olympic honours to 23 gold atop 28 medals in all, 2004-2016, with 2000 having marked his Games debut and a first Olympic final at 15 no less, The Golden Rules was published.

Eight years on, the guide, by coach Bob Bowman, and book written with Charles Butler, tapped the world on the shoulder once more, each and every Golden Rule relevant in the latest success story of one of the American coaches charges: Léon Marchand's four-gold-medal success for France at a home Olympics in Paris reminds those who never got round to reading the 'Rules' to do so.

Back in 2016, when the book came out, there were those who questioned whether Bowman would become an 'administrator' in his post-Phelps coaching career. I recall thinking at the time that such an assessment/possibility was one of the most idiotic things I'd ever read. And so it proved.

On a day when we name Bowman and entourage as the Men's Coaching Team of 2024, for his and their work with Marchand, fellow Olympic champion in Paris, Hungarian Hubert Kòs, and the NCAA-champion crew at the ASU Sun Devils in Arizona, here's the archive of our three features on "The Golden Rules" back in 2016 (that date is important to note when I comes to a few references that have been overtaken by subsequent events - the keen swimming observer will spot them without trouble):