Michael Phelps: en route to Rome, and to London
For those who might have forgotten, the race that left Michael Phelps disappointed last summer at the 2008 Beijing Games was the 200-meter butterfly.
Even though he won a gold medal and set a world record, 1:52.03.
His goggles, though, had filled with water. When he touched first, even when the scoreboard showed that world record, his face registered the frustration at opportunity lost because he knew, and anyone who knows Michael and knows swimming knows, he could have gone faster, a lot faster. Given the ridiculously phenomenal shape he was in last August, his 2008 goal sheet time for the event, 1:51.1, was well within reach.
The close this weekend of the 2009 U.S. swim championships in Indianapolis means two weeks to go until the 2009 worlds in Rome. Looking toward Italy, and all the world records that might fall, the most intriguing may well be the 200 fly.
Why? Because a lot of records seem likely to fall in Rome. But a lot of those records may ultimately prove virtually meaningless because of the way swimsuit technology has changed this year’s competition. Not, though, should Michael break the record in Rome, in the 200 fly. Or, for that matter, if it’s Michael again, in the 100 fly.
Michael swims in Speedo, same as ever. In the fly events, the leggings he wore in Beijing gave way to an over-the-shoulder full suit in Indianapolis. Maybe that’s a faster way to go than leggings. But it’s by no means the fastest suit in the pool.
So make no mistake. What Michael does is not only real — it’s genuine.
And over these past few days in Indianapolis, Michael proved — again, for those who might have had doubts after the months off following the 2008 Games and the complexities that followed the publication his past February of the bong photo — that he is genuinely an athlete beyond compare.
In Indianapolis, Michael won the 200 fly, in 1:52.76, easily the fastest time in the world this year. He won the 200 free, in 1:44.23. He also won the 100 fly, and in that race set a world record, 50.22 — the one record that over the years he had been chasing hard because it had been held since 2003 by his rival and friend, Ian Crocker.
Moreover, in Indianapolis Michael was not in top shape. He figures to hit his 2009 peak in Rome — just as he peaked in 2008 in Beijing.
To recap, then: Michael’s not even in his best shape; he has only been back training for maybe four months; yet he’s setting a world record in a race that had eluded him for years?
How, really, is that even possible?
Here’s how:
For one, Michael was able to suck it up big-time when he first came back to the pool in late winter, when it hurt big-time to drag himself from wall to wall — just as he knew it would. “He was able to get fit quickly,” his longtime coach, Bob Bowman, was saying to me Friday morning on the phone from Indy.
Perhaps even more important, Michael not only got fit — he got strong. When Michael, after a period of uncertainty about his swim future, decided to come back and attack all the way to and through the London Games in 2012, he committed himself as never before to the weight room.
That’s a lot of what you’re seeing — how much stronger he has become in only four months.
“I just think he’s got more speed because he’s stronger,” Bowman said. “Quite honestly, if you analyze the 200s, he didn’t finish as well as he has previously.
“He’s still not perfectly trained. In an ideal world, he’d be finishing better. He knows that.”
For purposes of comparison, last year’s U.S. Olympic Trials in Omaha makes for a better apples-to-apples with this week in Indianapolis than does Beijing.
Compare:
In the 200 free final this week in Indianapolis, Michael swam the last 50 meters in 26.62. Last year in Omaha, 26.29.
In the 200 fly final in Indy, he went 29.49 for the last 50. Last year in Omaha, 29.16.
Early Friday, Michael scratched from the 100 free in Indy — meaning he won’t swim that race in Rome. He has a painful kink in his neck, which developed Thursday, before the 100 fly. He wanted to keep swimming in Indy, to test the progress he has made in the 100 free. Bowman said no. There will be a lot more 100 free races to come, Bowman said.
So there’s another element: Michael set the 100 fly record with a neck that hurt so badly it forced him — a guy who loves more than almost anything to compete — to scratch from the 100 free.
Not that, in the grand scheme, it means much that Michael won’t be swimming the 100 free in Rome. Because of the schedule, he was always going to have to choose in Rome to do either the 100 free or 200 fly. And the way he has been swimming the butterfly made that an easy choice.
It isn’t just that 50.22. It’s the then-personal best 50.48 he swam in the event last month in Montreal. And the 51.72 that announced his return to competitive swimming in mid-May — one-hundredth of a second better than Michael Cavic’s 2009 best through that point of the year.
When he finished the 200 fly Wednesday in Indianapolis, Michael — as he had done in Beijing — looked unhappy. In an interview on deck, he said mistakes he had made would “definitely be a little motivator.”
“It’ll hopefully get me to swim faster,” he said.
Here’s betting that in Rome he swims a lot faster.
And Rome is but a mere prelude to London, and 2012.