Phelps Is Feeling Heat From All Around

Added Cavic, "Because of what happened, I did return to swimming with a desire I probably would not have had if I had won the Olympic gold."

The 100 fly final takes place Saturday.

Phelps's coach, Bob Bowman, said Phelps should win the 200 free Tuesday. Maybe.

"He has to be at his best," Bowman said. "There is no leeway."

And problematic for Phelps: He isn't feeling so great about his freestyle stroke these days. On Monday morning, he announced that he was ditching the "straight-armed" stroke that he experimented with in sprint races this summer, saying "we tried something and it didn't work." The straight-armed approach was supposed to provide more power over short distances, but Phelps never got comfortable with it.

In the relay Sunday, Bowman said, Phelps seemed to be doing a cross between his old freestyle and the new one. His leg was slower than he swam last year in Beijing.

Phelps added that his freestyle stroke "was kind of off," perhaps because of his attempts to manage both.

At least Phelps has time to get himself ready for his final five events, the 100 and 200 fly and the 200 free, along with two more relays.

Bowman, Phelps's longtime coach, seemed privately satisfied that Biedermann had pushed his emotional star's buttons with his out-of-the-blue performances. Last year his time in the 200 free, 3:47.69, ranked 21st in the world. His time in the 200, 1:46.00, was ninth best. Phelps and Bowman discussed their joint shock Sunday at Biedermann's world-record swim, and the sad fact that the legendary Thorpe had been, finally, wiped from the record books.

"I think some people are going to bring the heat tomorrow night," Bowman said. One of them, he said, "is M.P."