Evolving Phelps not just treading water

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This time, it’s not about the gold. At the world swimming championships, which start Sunday in Montreal, Michael Phelps aims to take nothing more than “baby steps.”

Michael Phelps is using the world championships to hone his skills for the 2008 Olympic Games. “I’m still learning about swimming, 12 years into it,” he says.
By Tom Strattman, AP

“I just want to go in and race, to find little things I can work on and improve,” Phelps says.

Phelps’ trophy haul at last year’s Summer Olympics was no little thing. He won eight medals, six gold, leaving Athens the most decorated athlete of a non-boycotted Games.

But he’ll dive back into highly competitive waters at Montreal a work in progress. Just as his arrest on a DUI charge in November reminded everyone — above all, the 20-year-old Phelps — that he’s still growing as a person, his plan for Montreal shows he still is developing as a swimmer.

“I’m still learning about swimming, 12 years into it,” he says.

Phelps has not backed off his ambitious program. He intends to swim in five individual events and three relays, as he did in Athens.

But he has dropped two of the events he dominates most, the 400-meter individual medley and 200-meter butterfly, to make room in his packed schedule for the 100- and 400-meter freestyles, where he will be an underdog.

Phelps’ fearsome finishing kick gives U.S. teammate Jason Lezak and South Africans Roland Schoeman and Ryk Neethling a reason to start strong and keep their distance in the 100, but a Phelps win would be a significant upset. Australian Grant Hackett’s best time this year in the 400 is more than three seconds faster than Phelps’.

“A lot of the international guys are taking a step back,” says Dave Salo, U.S. men’s coach for worlds. He notes that Australia’s Ian Thorpe and the Netherlands’ Pieter van den Hoogenband — the only swimmers to beat Phelps in an individual event in Athens — won’t be in Montreal. “But Michael’s a pretty focused, determined individual.”

For Phelps this is about a much longer race, one that ends at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. Experience in the 100 makes him a stronger teammate in the 400 free relay, an event the USA hasn’t won for five years. The 400 forces him to work on his freestyle stroke and his pacing for distance events.

In an approach that seems un-American for its patience, Phelps and his coach, Bob Bowman, have chucked instant gratification to work toward an audacious prospect for Beijing: Win it all.

“The only thing Michael can focus on now to improve his legacy or his swimming performance is 2008,” Bowman says. “There’s not much he can do in 2005 except get ready for 2008, and that’s how I kind of look at it.”

Coming back to earth

Gilding much of the pomp over Phelps last year was the promise his youth holds. The Mark Spitz standard, seven golds in one Games, still looms. Phelps has one, maybe two, more chances to clear it. He will be just 23 in Beijing.

Out of the pool, his aging process accelerated to a sprint the last 12 months. From promotional appearances to the DUI arrest to his first semester at the University of Michigan, where he would like to get a degree in sports management, Phelps went from a somewhat carefree teen living with his mom in suburban Baltimore to a young adult juggling responsibilities.

“I’ve seen him have to grow up pretty quickly,” says American Ian Crocker, Phelps’ nemesis in the 100 fly who, because they have the same agent, has spent a lot of time doing appearances with Phelps. “He’s got a lot of hats he wears. I’ve seen him do a pretty good job of balancing all that.”

Crocker and Phelps went almost directly from Athens to a U.S. bus tour. Phelps also did the overnight celebrity circuit, including The Tonight Show. By the time he arrived in Indianapolis in early October for the world short course championships, his back was stiff, his focus frayed. Phelps won his first race, the 200 free, then withdrew.

The back injury was not serious but kept him out of the pool for five weeks. During that time, on Nov. 4, he ran a stop sign in Salisbury, Md., where he was visiting friends. A state trooper pulled him over and administered roadside sobriety tests and a Breathalyzer. Phelps recorded a blood-alcohol level of 0.08, the legal limit in Maryland for driving under the influence.

“I think it was kind of easy after Athens to feel like maybe he operated in a little different set of rules than the average person,” says Bowman, who has coached Phelps for nine years. “I think that kind of brought him down to earth in a rather dramatic way, but certainly a demonstrative way.”

Prosecutors agreed to drop the DUI charge when Phelps pleaded guilty to the lesser driving while impaired. He was fined $250 and sentenced to 18 months’ probation, including speaking at several Maryland schools. Last weekend he did his third and final Wicomico County community-service appearance.

“What I wanted to do was afterwards just come and say it, man up to making a mistake and learning from it and helping other people not to make that mistake,” Phelps says. “A year ago, I don’t know if I would have done that or not.”

Getting used to new routines

By December, he had moved to Ann Arbor to join Bowman, the Wolverines’ new men’s swim coach. Phelps bought a townhouse and enrolled in two spring classes, public speaking and kinesiology.

The transition from childhood friends and coming home to an empty place, where he has to do his laundry and cooking, was rocky, he says. He found peace in the pool.

“It’s always been sort of his refuge,” Bowman says. “It’s also a world where he does everything right, and everybody tells him that and tells him, ‘You’re the greatest.’ ”

Because he’s a professional athlete, Phelps is not eligible to compete for the University of Michigan. But as a volunteer assistant coach, he does train with the Wolverines, an arrangement that pushes him as much as it does them.

“I’m not used to training with somebody next to me and racing every single day, every single stroke,” says Phelps, who adds that his turns, traditionally one of the weaker parts of his swims, “have been coming around” because of the challenge.

Phelps also is practicing relays with the Michigan swimmers. That, with his attention to the 100 free, could help quiet the questions that frothed when the 2004 Olympic coaches put him on the 400 free relay team even though he didn’t swim the 100 free individually in Athens. The team finished third.

“Michael still has a long way to go with regards to developing his relay expertise,” Salo says. “A lot of that is his lack of doing a lot of the relays, as much as the college guys do. … Their relay-exchange speed is so much better than Michael’s generally is. I think Michael sees that he needs to improve that aspect of his skill, and certainly having that experience is going to help the coaches a lot more.”

Ultimately, it also could help Phelps in his pursuit of perfection at Beijing. If the USA wins all three relays — in Athens the U.S. men won handily in the 400 medley relay and narrowly in the 800 free relay — it puts the brass ring of eight golds well within the reach of his extraordinary wingspan.

But those are debates and medal tallies for three years hence. Phelps is likely to make fewer headlines with his current mantra: “Baby steps to Beijing.”

“We’ve kind of put him in a situation where maybe people are going to see he really has goals other than to make sure he wins a gold medal every time,” Bowman says.

Phelps is making sure he’s ready to win gold at the time when the world again will be watching.