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Phelps Jumps Back in the Pool
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"You can kind of compare it to when Tiger [Woods] works on his putting game or chipping game," Phelps said. "It's something to add to his toolbox. I want to do other events to say I've done it."
Bowman vividly recalls the moment he learned Phelps would return to the sport: He was standing in the lobby at the Kennedy Center before a matinee performance by pianist Evgeny Kissin, holding a cup of coffee. It was Sunday, March 1 -- four weeks after the photo appeared -- when Bowman answered his phone and heard Phelps say, "I'm going four more years."
Though Phelps is finally back, he has found a new normal. When he arrived for his dual workouts at Loyola College, he drove up in a solid black Cadillac Escalade with rolled-up, dark-tinted windows that made it impossible to see inside. He emerged with a black military cap pushed onto his head and black wraparound sunglasses covering his eyes, and he had a cellphone pressed to his ear as he cradled two bottles of water. No one approached.
"He's different, he's really different," Bowman said. "I hate to use this word -- mature -- but the whole experience since Beijing has been eye-opening to say the least. When he talks now, he seems more thoughtful. When I talk to him about his future, he really has thoughts on what he wants to do."
Next week, Phelps will take part in his first race since the Olympics at the Charlotte Ultraswim, a professional event expected to draw a decent international field. At the four-day event, Phelps will swim in a pair of familiar events, the 200-meter freestyle and 100 butterfly, and three relatively new ones: the 50 free (only preliminaries), 100 backstroke and 100 free.
Back to his competition weight of 200 pounds, Phelps wants simply to assess his potential at shorter distances. In the 50 and 100 free, he will unveil a straight-armed freestyle stroke, which is popular among some sprinters but completely new to Phelps.
"My expectations aren't like they were going into the Games," he said. "I know I could swim a lot slower there. I could get beat in every event. These are all little steppingstones, like we always say, in the big picture."
He prefers to look ahead to the goal he has now fully embraced: the 2012 Summer Games in London.
"I'm not going to go one year and hang it up," Phelps said. "If I'm going, I'm going to go for four. I don't see any other way to do it. There are going to be ups and downs. I'm prepared for it. I'm ready for it. I've been through about everything you can go through in a sport. I'm ready for anything that may come my way."
