Will and Kate Welcome Olympic Torch

. The crowds and excitement are building in london tonight. The official kickoff to the olympics now just a day away. Today prince william and kate welcome the torch relay to buckingham palace. And... See More

. The crowds and excitement are building in london tonight. The official kickoff to the olympics now just a day away. Today prince william and kate welcome the torch relay to buckingham palace. And now the spotlight shifts to the athletes themselves and we want to know are they really just like the rest of us. Tonight, abc's bill weir on the science of becoming an olympic champ. Reporter: Exhibit a? Michael phelps -- first he was born with ridiculously long arms. While he stands at an imposing 6'4", his wingspan is three inches longer.And he uses so much energy digging them into pool water hour after hour. He out-eats the average american male by around 10,000 calories a day. There will be a lot of ice tubs and massages and trying to cram calories into my system as much as I can. Reporter: His teammate ryan lochte used to get a lot of those calories eating junk food, but this time around he's refined his diet and a workout that includes moving anchor chains and monster truck tires in addition to swimming around 70 miles a week. And while the average swimmer doing the crawl down at the ymca can propel themselves around four feet per stroke, gold medalist rebecca soni goes 50% farther. And when our friends at espn's "sport science" put sensors on her hands, they found out why. Each stroke generates up to 24 pounds of force, and while the average person has a stronger side that causes them to veer off-course, her stroke is almost perfectly balanced. Over in track and field, jesse williams can jump higher than any person on the planet, almost two feet higher than he is tall, thanks to a step that generates 1,200 pounds of force, almost enough to lift his own body weighght times. And his technique pushes the laws of physics, spinning so fast, and arching so far, 140 degrees, his center of gravity technically stays outside of his body. It's tough to beat gym mist like gabbie. She has spun around that bar almost three times per second. And it's still able to relocate that narrow target. 2,200s of a second. But before they get to run and jump, these superhumans get to march into that stadium behind me. Director danny boyle of slum dog millionaire fame is the director. He promises an opening sar moanny as led zep len and the beatles, james bond and ten chickens and 70 sheep. Still no word on who might be lighting that torch. No word on london, what a night that will be. And when we come back, how a