What's next for Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps is not a bad guy. Let’s start there. In fact, he’s a really, really good guy. He cares — deeply — about his family, his coaches, the people who have been with him for years, his hometown, his country and his sport. He is, genuinely, great with kids. He is, truly, a normal guy who found a genius for swimming and competing.

By driving drunk, according to the allegations levied against him by the authorities in Maryland, Michael made a really bad mistake. Perhaps the hardest piece: Michael has said many, many times, often to audiences of kids, that it’s OK to make a mistake — the trick is not to make the same mistake twice. Now, in the wake of his DUI problem 10 years ago, he has made the very same mistake, all over again.

The separate DUI incidents — of course, Michael is entitled to the presumption of innocence in regard to his arrest this week — are compounded by the 2009 episode in which he was photographed with his face in a bong.

Phelps was stopped at 1:40 a.m. Tuesday after leaving the brand-new Horseshoe Casino in downtown Baltimore, allegedly going 84 in a 45 zone. His blood-alcohol level was a reported 0.14, above the legal limit of 0.08.

The incident leads to all manner of questions, concerns and what-to-do’s — for Michael, USA Swimming, the U.S. Olympic Committee, Michael’s sponsors and everyone anywhere with an interest in the greatest Olympic athlete of all time.

That is, indisputably, what Michael is.

And that, actually, is at the core of all of this.

Michael is 29 now. Old enough, assuredly smart enough to know better, to have the judgment to call Uber. A taxi. A friend. Something or someone.

Michael’s first DUI came when he was 19, in November 2004, after the Athens Games. At that time in his life, as he has said, post-Games he had no structure, no routine. He was on a road trip to Maryland’s Eastern Shore with a friend. He had three beers. His blood-alcohol reading was precisely 0.08.

He pleaded guilty a month later in Salisbury, Maryland, to driving while impaired; was ordered to pay $305 in fines and court costs; to attend a meeting of Mothers Against Drunk Driving; and to speak at a number of schools about drinking, driving and decision-making.

USA Swimming did not suspend him.

The experience would lead Michael to Greg Harden, the longtime associate athletic director and director of athletic counseling at the University of Michigan. Harden gave Michael the advice that Michael would internalize, would make his own, would repeat as if it were a mantra:

It’s OK to make a mistake. Whenever you make a mistake, learn from it. If you learn from a mistake, you’ll be fine. Just don’t make the same mistake twice.

Among the challenges Michael is facing is that he has now violated his own code.

Michael and I worked together on his 2008 best-selling book and for sure we have long had a constructive relationship. We have not spoken this week. But I know him well enough to feel confident that no one feels worse about what happened than Michael.

I know, too, that he will deal with whatever is to come forthrightly. That is his way.

The issue is, what is appropriate?

Michael is a Baltimore guy through and through. He spent a few years in Ann Arbor, prepping for the 2008 Beijing Olympics while his longtime coach and mentor, Bob Bowman, was the head coach at the university. But now they are both back in Baltimore.

Michael is not — will never be — Hollywood. He is, for emphasis, a normal guy. He is happy to be in Baltimore, cheering on his Ravens like most everybody else there.

The deal is this, though: it may not be the best time to be a high-profile athlete facing the bar of justice in Baltimore, what with Ray Rice in the news. Under the law, Michael’s first DUI is irrelevant. At the same time, Michael has to accept that he might draw a judge who wants to make an example of him.

Beyond the legal ramifications, there is the matter of USA Swimming, indeed the Olympic establishment.

USA Swimming suspended him for three months for the 2009 episode. Now?

USA Today’s Christine Brennan suggested in a column Wednesday that Michael ought to be suspended for at least a year. She called his behavior “unconscionable.”

With due respect to my good friend Christine — she and I are from the same class at the Northwestern journalism school— her suggestion is over the top.

To compare:

The NFL suspended Donté Stallworth for a year after he pleaded guilty to DUI manslaughter charges in Florida. On March 14, 2009, in Miami, Stallworth killed a man while driving drunk.

To be clear, driving while impaired — again, Phelps is innocent until proven guilty — is bad no matter the circumstance.

In Stallworth’s case, for context, Stallworth’s blood-alcohol level was 0.126 and, of course, Mario Reyes, a construction worker who was simply trying to catch a bus home, is forever gone.

A prosecution video in the Stallworth case shows Stallworth braking immediately after Reyes ran into the street, outside the crosswalk — meaning, Stallworth has said, that even if sober he likely would have hit Reyes. But as Stallworth said in an interview this past summer, “.. I was wrong. I was driving under the influence and should not have been.”

Now, the argument is that Phelps should be gone for a year when no one -- luckily, true -- got hurt?

Things have to remain in proportion.

USA Swimming has said it’s assessing the situation.

It seems probable that Michael is going to be fined — other athletes are going to want to see that no one is above the rules, especially Michael — and suspended for some period of time. The issue is when and for how long. The 2015 world championships are next summer in Russia.

This leads to the crux of the matter, for all involved.

Michael has a boredom problem. The boredom problem creates a structure problem. The overarching problem is that there's a future problem.

It’s little wonder he is out presumably playing poker — which he enjoys — and, as he purportedly said to the police, having three or four drinks when he should have been in bed getting ready to swim.

Again, here is the deal:

Michael is the greatest of all time. He has 22 Olympic medals.

In Beijing, he went eight-for-eight. It was — incredible.

To do what he did in Beijing took years of monumental discipline, effort, focus and training. (Not to mention an awe-inspiring back-end split from Jason Lezak in the 400-meter freestyle relay.) Who wants to do that all over again? For sure not Michael.

This is the dilemma.

Michael knows that if he puts in the work that he can again be the world’s best swimmer — in certain races. But never again will he do what he did in Beijing. This is a terrible burden. For real. What must it be like to be great but never again as across-the-board great as you once were?

Michael talks about setting new goals. But swimming is the most relentlessly revealing of the Olympic sports. At the elite level, the sport is merciless in making clear whether an athlete has put in the work. You win -- or lose -- by hundredths of a second.

This is, in one fashion or another, what Michael has been wrestling with since the day the Beijing Games ended.

You saw it in 2011, at the world championships in Shanghai, where Ryan Lochte had put in the work, and Michael had not. In 2012, Michael tried the 400-meter individual medley, which he used to rule, and didn’t even medal — because he hadn’t trained sufficiently.

After the 400 IM, it became plain in London that Michael had done enough — just enough — to still star. But because he hadn’t really done everything he could have, he got out-touched by five-hundredths of a second in the 200 butterfly by Chad le Clos of South Africa — an ending that depended on feel in the water, feel that Phelps would have had, did have, in the 100 fly in Beijing, which he won by one-hundredth of a second over Serbia’s Milorad Cavic.

After London, Michael said, enough.

Then he watched the Americans come up short in the 400 free relay at the 2013 worlds in Barcelona and something stirred.

So he kinda-sorta came back.

Then, this year, he came back for real — and did very well at the Pan-Pacific championships in August in Australia, winning three gold medals and two silvers.

The good thing about the comeback is it gives Michael structure. He needs that sort of structure.

But obviously he's not yet all-in. On the road at 1:40 a.m.?

At the same time, and this must be said, this comeback is only prolonging the inevitable.

If Michael keeps swimming through 2016, it seems hugely unlikely that he would not make the U.S. team for Rio. Everyone says, like this is a bad thing, he’d be 31 by the start of those Games, in August, 2016. So what? He’s Michael. He's the best-ever. If he wants it, he will do it -- emphasis on the if.

Who, though, is Michael? Really, who is he? Not Michael the swimmer. Michael Phelps. At 29, who is he? And what is he all about?

Michael should take a good look at the guy looking back at him in the mirror and say, OK, what's the next chapter?

If he can do that, this DUI episode could — in a weird way — turn out to be a huge positive. Again, Michael should count his blessings that no one got hurt. He should not just count this as, but legitimately come to see this as, a second chance -- at everything.

He has it all, you say?

Not really. Michael doesn't know what he wants to do with himself.

When Michael was 16, he had the audacity to tell Peter Carlisle, who would go on to be his agent — still is his agent — that his goal was to grow the sport of swimming. He could see that already.

He hasn’t been able with the same clarity to articulate anything else. That’s where the drift has come. Now is the time to figure it out — especially if there is to be a suspension.

It seems reasonable to assume that, however this shakes out, Michael is going to find himself doing community service. And part of that service will involve speaking to kids. And those kids are going to ask, Michael, you always said it was OK to make a mistake but not to make it twice — what do you say now?

And if the other part of the code is learning from every mistake -- what are the lessons from this one?

Now is the time to figure all this out. Because that is a huge part of this next chapter. Of being accountable to himself and to everyone around him -- because he is normal, and yet in some respects his life is not normal and likely never will be. Of figuring out who Michael Phelps is, and what his next direction holds.

Michael Phelps as work in progress

Michael Phelps had it Friday morning, turning in a sensational prelim swim. He didn’t quite have it Friday night when it counted, losing by one-hundredth of a second in the 100 butterfly to Tom Shields at the U.S. national championships in Irvine, California. The upshot: Phelps is back on the national team. For him, for the U.S. team, for swimming in general, that’s all good. Now, though, the real work begins. As Bob Bowman, his longtime coach, said Friday night, “I think he needs to go home and put in some more practices.”

All that is going to have to wait until after the Pan Pacific championships later this summer in Australia, when the Phelps phenomenon goes overseas — in essence, more under-the-spotlight practice time for Phelps to work on his 100 fly, 100 freestyle, 100 backstroke and 200 individual medley. There may be moments of greatness. There also may be moments of, say what?

Remember, these nationals were only the fifth meet of the Phelps comeback after a 20-month competitive layoff.

The race Friday night not only marked Phelps’ best chance to get back onto the international stage for the next two years — a quirk of the USA Swimming rules for this summer’s Pan Pacs and, presumably, next year’s world championships in Russia — it also underscored just how much more work lies ahead for Phelps himself before the 2016 Rio Olympics and, as well, how much better swimming itself has gotten in the two years since the London Games without him and, of course, directly because of him.

Phelps had finished seventh in the 100 free on Wednesday, missing the turn in the shadows.

He has other races on the program: the 100 backstroke and 200 individual medley.

Phelps is the London 2012 200 IM champion. But that race is altogether a different sort of test for someone who has been back at it for months, not years.

And the 100 fly has been one of his mainstays.

Phelps is the gold medalist in the 100 fly at the last three Olympic Games and, moreover, at the 2007, 2009 and 2011 world championships.

He is the world-record holder in the event, 49.82, set in a memorable duel at the 2009 Rome worlds with Milorad Cavic.

Phelps is of course the holder of 22 Olympic medals, 18 of them gold.

What gets obscured in the glare of all that gold, however, is what it took to get there, and an elemental premise:

Swimming is hard.

Not to say other sports aren’t.

But at the elite level, swimming always — to repeat, always — reveals whether a racer has put in the work.

This is what Phelps learned, to his detriment, at the Shanghai worlds in 2011. He had not put in the work. Ryan Lochte had. Lochte had an awesome meet. Phelps, to be gracious, did not. Phelps acknowledged as much, and put in just enough to come back in London to win six more medals, then go on his retirement tour.

Now he is back.

The Phelps who went eight-for-eight in Beijing was a guy who over the years put in ferocious amounts of work. He and Bowman famously did not take off weekends or holidays.

With two years now until Rio, the question now in front of Phelps and Bowman is elemental. The work is there to be done. Will it?

Phelps’ legacy is assured. He is the greatest Olympic athlete of not just our time but all time. What he chooses to do is up to him.

Before these recent meets, he has acknowledged nerves — very un-Phelps like. And he knows why, too, saying it’s because he hasn’t put in the training to feel ready to do what’s necessary. That training not only lends fitness, it gives him a feel for what’s what — so, for instance, he doesn’t glide turns, like he did in Friday’s final.

Shields, the winner already here of the 200 fly, finished the 100 in 51.29.

Phelps touched in 51.30, done in by nerves and by a crummy turn mid-way. Typically, Phelps takes 16 strokes in the first half of the 100 fly. This time, it was 16 strokes and a glide before the turn. That cost him.

After the race, Phelps said, “Bob and I were talking: if I want to go 50-point, or if I want to go better, I need more. I need more training. I need more endurance. I need to feel more comfort with my stroke. There are just a lot of things that need to happen. I understand that.”

Bowman: “It’s not fitness. It’s the knowledge that he’s getting up there against these other guys who are on fire and he knows what he has done to get here. And it ain’t what he used to do to get here.”

Phelps also said, “I just felt out of it, not my normal self at finals.

“Normally, I’m very relaxed, very ready. Like Bob said, it’s probably because I’m not used to being in this kind of shape, I guess, shape or this kind of feeling going into a meet. Normally, I can look back and say I’ve done all the training, I’ve done everything I’ve needed to do to prepare myself. You know, with having a year and a half off, and maybe not really going as hard as I probably should have at some of the parts during the year, it shows. And that’s something I understand.

“There are things like this that help me and motivate more than anything else. I’m somebody who can’t stand to lose. I don’t care if it’s by a hundredth or five seconds … I can not stand to lose. This will definitely motivate me … this will definitely be something that sticks with me over the next year leading up to, hopefully, world championships.”

Two years until Rio seems like a long time. It is. And yet — it’s not.

Before this meet, Phelps acknowledged that his swimming and fitness are still very much a work in progress.

When he got back into the water, he said, he was 30 pounds overweight. So he cut out red meat for six months. When did that end? “I pretty much just ended it.”

His freestyle had “been off over the last couple of weeks,” Phelps said, Bowman elaborating that “we always did everything for a 200 before, and then the 100 kind of came out of that, and now we’ve been really trying to do it for a 100 and it’s not — he’s just getting used to that, the tempo and stuff of it.”

Asked about doing a longer race, like a 200 free, Phelps said, “I’m not anywhere close to being able to swim that race at the level I would want to swim it at.”

The thing is, while Phelps is working his way back, the world is not going to be standing still. Shields said Friday night that he had grown up — nearby, in Huntington Beach, California — “worshipping” the likes of Phelps and Ryan Lochte, watching them on TV six years ago in Beijing.

Now he and many, many others are absolutely wanting to take down Phelps or, for that matter, anyone.

Five years ago, in Rome, 43 world records went down. This was at the height of the plastic-suit craze. The experts thought some records might stand for 20 or more years.

Now, it seems, each and every record is potentially at risk.

Why?

Because, in large measure, Phelps has inspired a huge new wave of talent.

And what did Phelps always say was his primary goal, above all else? To grow the sport. So he has only himself to thank for the enhanced competition.

Reading out the start lists from the 100 fly final: six of the eight guys swam lifetime bests in the prelims. Phelps and Lochte — who would finish fifth Friday night — were the only two who did not.

Phelps even noted it, saying after the morning swim, “As soon as Ryan and I saw those guys go 51, we were like, what is this? Can’t we have an easy morning? But I guess we just have to go every time.”

All Phelps did in the morning swim was go 51.17, the fastest time in the world in 2014 — 12-hundredths faster than Chad le Clos’ time at the Commonwealth Games.

For comparison, Phelps’ morning swim was faster than the 51.21 he went to win the London 2012 100 fly final.

Along the way, Phelps is going to throw out glimmers like this.

The trick for Phelps — as he and Bowman acknowledged Friday night — is for those one-offs to become consistent.

The plain fact is that Phelps makes everyone around him better. Most of the time that’s evident through the times themselves. Sometimes it’s simply race strategy and getting the opportunity to swim with the best swimmer in the world — the best of all time — just once.

That famous 10,000-hour rule? The one that says it takes you 10,000 hours to become an expert in something? In swim terms, swimming next to Phelps just once, either in practice or a race, and you experience the 10,000-hour rule in less than a minute.

Now it’s on Phelps to, once more, make himself better. This is the hardest trick there is. But also the most satisfying, the most rewarding.

“As he gets back into it, he’ll be good,” Bowman said. “As he does some more work, he’ll be good. More confidence. More prepared.”

Ledecky makes beautiful music in 200 free

Katie Ledecky took down Missy Franklin in the women’s 200 freestyle Thursday evening at the U.S. nationals in Irvine, California, and though both laughed and made all sweet about it because that’s how they are, and Franklin even danced on deck when the poolside announcer talked about the Backstreet Boys, this — when, years from now, they look back — may well be one of the Katie Ledecky signature moments. Ledecky touched in 1:55.16, a full 1.24 ahead of Franklin. It was the second-fastest time in the world this year and, for Ledecky, a personal best. Which ought to give everyone pause, because Ledecky just turned 17 in March and has so far concentrated on the 400 and above. She simply has not raced the 200 much. As she learns the race, she probably will get a lot, lot faster.

The two of them are — at once — racers, teammates and friends, Ledecky headed for Stanford, Franklin already at Berkeley, the both of them expected mainstays for years to come not just on the U.S. team but on the American 4x200 relay.

That relay, in fact, is what Ledecky — and coach Bruce Gemmell — have said is the thing that drew her down to the 200 from the distance events she has come to dominate.

Then again, she was entered in Irvine in, among other events, the 100 free, too. She simply is becoming so good that she has to try.

Last year, at the world championships in Barcelona, after Ledecky was named the meet’s outstanding swimmer, she said Franklin should have had the honor.

This was their back-and-forth then:

“I am sooooooo proud of Katie. She was absolutely unbelievable. I think she has probably been my absolute favorite swimmer to watch ever." — Franklin

"Missy deserves it probably more than I do. Missy had an incredible week. We are all so proud of her. What she did this week, we were sitting there in awe." — Ledecky

This was them Thursday on the pool deck:

“You never know with Missy. It was a tough race. I just enjoyed being in the final.” — Ledecky

“It’s so special. Watching Katie in the 1500, the 800, it’s a treat for everyone. Being able to race her in the 200, it just makes you better.” — Franklin

“I watch her all the time. She’s amazing. It’s great to watch her here and learn from her.” — Franklin

This is how this sort of thing is really is.

Here’s how it is, too:

On Thursday night, Katie Ledecky slipped down into a distance that Missy Franklin owned last year and Ledecky was more than a full second better. So what does that mean for each going forward, and for the U.S. team, and for world swimming?

This was Franklin, of the five gold medals in London, the six golds at the 2013 worlds in Barcelona, including that 200 free.

Ledecky came to Irvine the winner of gold in London in the 800, when she was just 15. In Barcelona, at 16, she won the 400, 800 and 1500 and set two world records in the two distance events. She has since lowered both distance marks — both this past June at a low-key meet in Texas, both by more than two seconds.

On Wednesday, as the Irvine meet got started, Ledecky flirted with the world record and easily won the 800. Franklin, meanwhile, took the 100 free over Simone Manuel, another rising teen talent who, like Ledecky, is headed for Stanford.

In the 100 free prelims, Ledecky had finished 13th.

In Thursday morning’s 200 free prelims, Franklin put together an easy 1:57.83.

Ledecky, meanwhile, went 1:55.75. That was the morning’s fastest showing and, as well, the fourth-fastest time in the world in 2014.

Allison Schmitt, the London 2012 200 gold medalist who curiously failed to qualify for the Barcelona team, missed out, again. She finished in 1:59.5, good only for 11th place.

The 200 free was the first event on Thursday evening’s sun-dappled program. Ledecky drew Lane 4, Franklin Lane 5.

By 100 meters, Ledecky was in the lead.

At 150 meters, Ledecky was riding noticeably higher in the water than Franklin.

The final turn sealed the deal.

Their splits over the back half of the race — that is, the final 100 meters — are instructive:

Ledecky: 29:58, 28.94.

Franklin: 29.94, 29.72.

Franklin’s finishing time of 1:56.4, it must be said, was 10th-fastest of 2014. She swam an excellent race.

It must also be noted that Franklin went on about 75 minutes later Thursday to win the 200 backstroke, in 2:08.38, and that no one came within two seconds of her.

Ledecky’s work for the night, however, was over. She had well and thoroughly won. Perhaps her only disappointment — though there was none of this to be spoken off, at least out loud — is that she had not gone under 1:55. The world-best time this year is 1:55.04, from Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom.

“I wasn’t really worried about the time,” Ledecky said afterward. “I just wanted to get into a good race and swim the best race I could.”

She also said, “The best part about my race was my tempo. I think I did a really good job of increasing my tempo throughout my race and my arms didn’t really die, so I was happy with that.”

Earlier in her career — it seems almost ridiculous to say “earlier in her career” of someone who is 17 but the phraseology is lacking in the English language — Ledecky would go out, race hard, just go, go, go. Now she has speed, endurance and discipline, as she showed Wednesday when she backed off world-record pace about halfway through the 800.

She also, as she proved Thursday, can bring it in a range of events, from the 200 up through distance categories. And, as she showed Wednesday, she is getting better in the 100.

In winning last year’s 200 in Barcelona, Franklin broke 1:55, going 1:54.81. Schmitt’s American record is 1:53.61, set in London in 2012. The world record is 1:52.98, which Italy’s Federica Pellegrini set in Rome at the height of the plastic-suit craze at the 2009 world championships.

Before the meet, Gemmel said he can now tell how Ledecky is swimming just by listening “to the swims,” likening it to the way a concert pianist can hear great music.

“Sometimes during practice he says that doesn’t sound like fast swimming, or that sounds like fast swimming,” Ledecky said.

He said, “I think one of Katie’s biggest growth areas over the last year is she can swim the races multiple ways. I think up until a couple years ago she was most comfortable with and only swam it real hard, going out from the start, but based upon her swims last summer in Barcelona that for various reasons we chose to swim different ways, and for the swims down in Texas, I think that’s her biggest growth area, that she can now swim back half, front half, middle half, every other lap, however we choose to swim it.

“We’ve done that before.”

And now, everyone?

For one night, no Phelps magic

Before Michael Phelps had won even the first of his 22 Olympic medals he was, in 2003, the United States men’s national champion in the 100-meters freestyle. The circle turns. It’s back to the future. Pick your metaphor as the 2014 U.S. nationals got underway in earnest Wednesday in Irvine, California, with Phelps stepping to the blocks for the finals of the 100 free.

To expect Phelps to win everything — at least right now, this soon into his comeback — is perhaps a bit too much. Phelps would naturally expect so. But when Nathan Adrian is in the race, and Adrian is not only the London 2012 Olympic 100 gold medalist but the man who since 2009 has won either or both the 50 and 100 at the national level, something’s got to give.

And it’s not just Adrian.

Anthony Ervin was in the race as well. Ervin is an Olympic gold medalist sprinter, too, the 50 champ from Sydney 2000. In the morning prelims, both Adrian and Ervin had gone faster than Phelps.

Also in the race: Jimmy Feigen, silver medalist in the 100 at last year’s world championships in Barcelona and an Olympic relay medalist.

Not to mention Matt Grevers (multiple Olympic medalist), Ryan Lochte (multiple Olympic medalist), Conor Dwyer (silver medalist, 200, Barcelona, as well as Olympic relay gold medalist); and Seth Stubblefield.

Stubblefield was the only non-Olympian in the field. How would you like to have been Seth Stubblefield Wednesday evening?

This was big-boy swimming, for sure.

This, too, is all part of the master plan now seemingly fully in motion, aiming toward Rio 2016, two years from now.

Phelps and his longtime coach, Bob Bowman, keep saying they’re just taking it bit by bit, day by day. Maybe so. Then again, the day before the U.S. nationals began, they announced a new deal with Aqua Sphere, and logic says that deal can only be enhanced if Phelps is swimming on the international stage in Brazil, right?

Right now it would seem abundantly obvious that Phelps and Bowman are in the midst of finding out if they can remake Phelps 2.0 as Phelps the way he was, at least in part, the way he was way back when.

In Irvine, he was entered in the 100 free, 100 back, 100 butterfly and 200 individual medley.

Part of this is because Phelps is now 29. It’s exceedingly unlikely he would, at least right now, put up with the wear and tear on his body it would require to, say, swim the 400 IM anymore.

Part of this is because having done everything there is to do in his other races he likely needs to challenge himself in different ways.

“There are always things that I still want to do and want to achieve, and that’s part of the reason why I’m still here,” he told reporters before the meet got going. “You’re not going to get what it is. You guys know me too well.”

Mel Stewart, the 1992 200 fly gold medalist who can now be found at SwimSwam.com, opined recently that without the 400 IM, “a 46-plus 100m freestyle and 49 plus 100m butterfly could be in the cards by the 2016 Olympic Games," meaning, for instance, 46-plus seconds in the 100. The world record in the 100 is currently 46.91, held by Brazil's Cesar Cielo, set at the Rome 2009 world championships.

Then again, Stewart said, let’s stay in the moment.

Stewart said he expects lifetime bests for Phelps either in Irvine or, later this summer, at the Pan Pacific championships in Australia.

This, then, is the thing about these U.S. nationals, which many are overlooking in the glare of the Phelps comeback. It is, above all, a set-up meet for the Pan Pacs and, beyond, for the 2015 world championships in Russia.

The point is not to peak in Irvine. You saw that when Katie Ledecky flirted with the world record in the women’s 800 Wednesday evening, then let off the gas before winning in 8:18.47.

The competition in Irvine is ferocious. It was evident, for instance, in the men’s 100 free, where no fewer than 32 guys went under 50 seconds in Wednesday morning’s prelims. Last year, in Indianapolis, before the off-year Barcelona worlds, there were only 17.

Even so, while racing is always racing, the deal in Irvine is to make the U.S. team and to keep one’s eye on the longer-range prize.

Before Irvine, Phelps this year had raced in only two 100 free finals — one in Santa Clara, California, in June, the other last month in Athens, Georgia.

The prelims Wednesday morning were strikingly like the Santa Clara race. There, in a time of 48.8, he finished second to Adrian. The first 50 meters Phelps swam 23.73. The second, 25.07. On Wednesday morning, Phelps went 23.98. The second 50, Phelps, as has been his pattern through the years, turned it on to go 24.79, the only guy in the field in the back half to break 25. All in: 48.77.

The only thing is, Adrian had gone 48.24. Adrian had gone out the first 50 meters in a speedy 22.63. As Adrian would say later, “I had to be out really, really fast to make sure Michael couldn’t somehow find a way to be out of my wake, to be really hurting at the very end.”

Even so, he stressed, his race strategy was hardly all Phelps: “It wasn’t just Michael. There are a lot of people who are going fast.”

In another heat, Ervin went 48.71.

In the finals, Ervin drew Lane 5, Adrian 4, Phelps 3. Lochte was all the way out there in 8, Feigen in 2.

Phelps got to the turn four-tenths faster than he did in the morning, at 23.58. But then it all fell apart. He missed the wall, didn’t execute his turn properly and struggled to the finish in 49.17 — good only for seventh.

Adrian won, in 48.31. Lochte took second, in 48.96. Feigen got third, in 48.98.

In all, a slow race, and perhaps a cause for concern going forward for the 4x100 relay, where times need to be in the 47s to be competitive. Adrian said afterward, “We know as a whole that group of eight guys is much faster than what we showed in the pool tonight.”

Phelps’ finals time was four-tenths slower than he had gone in the morning. The prelim swim would have gotten him silver behind Adrian but, you know, that’s not how it works.

“I’m really interested to see what the replay looks like because going into the wall I felt like I had set myself up for a good one just based on where I was in comparison to Nathan,” Phelps said, “and I thought I had the right distance to go into the wall and when I literally took a couple kicks and I barely passed the flags I knew there was very little chance that I was going to run anybody down.

“So it’s kind of frustrating but, you know, I never really know where we are in that race right now. I felt really good after the morning swim besides the first 50 and I felt good in the warmup pool getting ready for tonight. It just kind of stinks that I missed the first wall but it’s a part of racing and there is going to be another chance to swim that race in a couple weeks. I’m just trying to get a spot on the team and go from there.”

Lochte added, “He said he missed the turn. I saw it, because when I flipped, I looked under water and saw him. Things happen. He is going to fix it and make sure it never happens again.” 

What happened Wednesday evening matters, of course, because you can hardly remember the last time Phelps was not on the podium in a national meet. At the same time, Rio is still two years away.

Also, 2003 is a long time back. And, as Rowdy Gaines put it on the Universal Sports telecast, Phelps is “still learning.” Even the greatest Olympic swimmer of all time doesn’t just get back into the water and beat everyone, especially when everyone is so much better than they used to be — thanks in large measure to Phelps, who has inspired a generation.

As Gaines also said, “It’s going to take some time to get back into this.”

Katie Ledecky version 2014

The wall-to-wall coverage of the soccer World Cup has tended to obscure what the American swimmer Katie Ledecky did at a low-key meet that concluded Sunday near Houston. It shouldn’t. It isn’t just that Ledecky set two world records in the 1500 and 800, the two women’s freestyle races that for decades featured records impervious to change. She won across the board — 1500, 800, 400, 200, 100. It has been more than 40 years since Australia’s Shane Gould held every women’s freestyle record, from the 100 up to the 1500. (The 50 didn't come until later.) That is borderline preposterous. Then again, so is what Ledecky did this weekend.

Granted, many of America’s top swimmers were racing elsewhere, at the Grand Prix event in Santa Clara, California. Even so, her times in Texas were almost unbelievable.

If she didn’t get airtime on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” because it was being hogged up by the U.S. men’s soccer team’s 2-2 tie with Portugal, or even because golfer Michelle Wie won the women’s U.S. Open, you can bet that everyone in swim circles snapped to when they saw what Katie Ledecky did near Houston.

Because — as amazing as she was in 2012, when at 15 she won Olympic gold in the 800 free, or as dominating as she was in 2013, when she won four golds in Barcelona at the world championships amid two world records — the 2014 version of Katie Ledecky appears to be just as ruthlessly competitive but far more versatile.

When she is not swimming, Ledecky is, by all accounts, a delightful young woman. She is modest. She is a team player. She has announced she intends to attend Stanford when she finishes high school. She is still — let’s remember — only 17.

“She has unbelievable work ethics and work habits,” said Jon Urbanchek, the former University of Michigan coach who has for years been affiliated with the U.S. national team and worked with Ledecky in London in 2012, adding, “She was pushing the boys in practice a lot.”

When she is racing, however, she is a killer, and that is meant to be a high compliment. Simply, Ledecky goes out and means to break you by the force of her incredibly intense competitive will.

Afterward, she smiles, and sweetly.

Just like Missy Franklin.

The idea of the two of them — and Allison Schmitt — racing the 200 free is pretty unreal.

Schmitt is the London 2012 Olympic 200 free gold medalist. Franklin is the Barcelona 2013 world champion in the 200 free. Schmitt didn’t swim in Barcelona. Franklin and Ledecky together swam on the winning U.S. 4x200 freestyle relay team.

“She is unreal,” Franklin said at a news conference Thursday in Santa Clara.

Here is how unreal Ledecky is, starting with the 1500, which in swimming lingo is called the mile:

— Janet Evans swam the 1500 in 15:52.10, on March 26, 1988, at the USA spring nationals in Orlando, Florida. No one broke that record for nearly 20 years.

Finally, on June 17, 2007, Kate Ziegler did it, going 15:42.54, at a meet in Mission Viejo, California. That is not quite eight seconds.

At that meet, Ziegler had just come down to California from attitude training. She is what Urbanchek calls a “responder” — that is, someone whose body responds immediately to the effects of altitude training, designed to increase oxygen-carrying capacity.

“You train up there at altitude, you come down and you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can breathe,’ “ Evans said. “It’s awesome. It’s amazing.”

In warmups, Ziegler recalled of that race, she was off. But when the gun went off, something clicked:

“It was as easy as a mile could be. Lap after lap, I felt so consistent, so strong. I didn’t know how fast I was going. I saw people going alongside and cheering me along. I didn’t have that many teammates there so I knew something must be going on — I saw so many people cheering!”

Last summer in Barcelona, Ledecky lowered the mile mark almost six seconds, to 15:36.53.

In Texas this weekend, Ledecky, too, had just come down from altitude. She, too, is a “responder.”

In the mile, she went 15:34.23 — lowering the record by two and a half seconds.

As an indicator of how good Ledecky’s performance is, Lotte Friis of Denmark, who is maybe one of two or three women in the world right now who might be able to give Ledecky a race in the mile, swam the same event Thursday in Santa Clara. Friis won convincingly, by 10 seconds. Friis’ time: 16:00.35.

Math: Ledecky’s time is better by 26 seconds. 26 seconds!

The career progression & trend line for Katie Ledecky in the 1500m Fr. An amazing WR but the trend line is awesome: pic.twitter.com/sCABWO0pGl

— USA Swimming Stats (@USASwimStats) June 22, 2014

— It was Aug. 20, 1989, when Evans, again, set the world record in the 800 free, 8:16.22, swimming in Tokyo at the Pan Pacific championships.

It took 19 years until someone broke that record — Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain, on Aug. 16, 2008, at the Beijing Games, going 8:14.10.

In Barcelona last year, Ledecky went 8:13.86.

In Texas on Sunday, Ledecky went 8:11 flat. Again, she took more than two seconds off her own record.

In Santa Clara, Cierra Runge of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, swimming Sunday, won the 800 free in a lifetime-best 8:26.71.

Math: Ledecky’s time is 15 seconds-plus better.

Katie Ledecky's new World Record in the 800m Fr 8:11.00. A look at her progression with a trend line showing sub 8:00 pic.twitter.com/WqPsUN8vbO

— USA Swimming Stats (@USASwimStats) June 22, 2014

At that Texas meet, beyond the two world records, Ledecky also won three other freestyle races, the 400, in the fastest time so far this year in the world; the 200, in a time a tenth away from what she did at the 2013 world championships; and the 100, just off her season- and personal-best.

“I think she is in a really sweet spot,” Evans said. “There are a lot of eyes on Michael, a lot of eyes on Missy,” referring to Phelps and Franklin. “As well as she did in London,” meaning Ledecky, “she’s still going to college. There’s not a lot of adulation on her yet. There’s not a lot of pressure. That’s how I felt. Not a lot of pressure. It’s all fun. You just go.”

One of Urbanchek’s former Michigan swimmers, Bruce Gemmel, is now Ledecky’s coach, and Urbanchek said, “She is like Janet. She has the range across the continuum — except for maybe the 50. She is extremely talented. She is extremely hard-working. She is a racer, an attacker. And she is learning to control her races.”

Ledecky’s London 800 is already the stuff of swim legend — she went out super-fast, so fast that almost no one thought she could hold on. Of course she did.

The Barcelona 1500 — she and Friis dueled throughout the race until Ledecky dropped the hammer late — proved that Ledecky had developed great closing speed. Now, Ziegler said, “The more speed she develops — and she has speed — she also has finishing endurance and she has guts. That is an incredible, unstoppable combination. I wouldn’t begin to predict what we will see from her. She keeps raising that bar. I would not set a limit on her.

“Whatever she she sets her sights on is within her realm,” Ziegler said, adding, “It’s very exciting.”

16 months for a supplement, and now?

Russian swim star and world-record holder Yulia Efimova got a 16-month ban for taking a supplement that included a banned substance. She tested positive for DHEA. That’s for sure a no-no.

Odds are, most of you have never heard of her.

Fair enough.

Moreover, doping cases tend to be repetitive, indeed mundane.

This one is actually interesting, and on a number of different levels.

Here’s why:

Efimova will sit out 2014 and the first two months of 2015, meaning she will likely be back in time for the 2015 world championships in Kazan, Russia, before a home crowd, and to make a run for Rio 2016. Thus she had ample incentive to get this over with.

It's another example of leniency for supplement use. Which on the one hand is entirely appropriate. Supplement use is not, for instance, the same as injecting EPO. On the other, it makes you wonder — when is the message going to get through to elite athletes that supplement use can be reckless and irresponsible?

It’s also another victory for noted lawyer Howard Jacobs of Westlake Village, California. Look, if you have a doping problem, it’s like Ghostbusters — who you gonna call? Howard Jacobs, obviously.

Efimova didn’t even bother to have the B sample tested. She didn’t contest the lab finding. She knew what she had done. Again, this was an issue of negligence and then, for the authorities, seeking to measure liability with common sense.

The three-person FINA Doping Panel ruling was dated Monday.

Efimona competes for Russia but trains at the University of Southern California.

She is now 22. She has been a first-rate swimmer since her teens. She moved to USC when she was 18. At the 2012 London Games, she won bronze in the 200-meter breaststroke. Last year, at the world championships in Barcelona, she would win the finals of both the 50 and 200 breast and set the world-record in the 50, 29.78, in the heats - a mark that Ruta Meilutyte of Lithuania then lowered in the semifinals to 29.48.

She tested positive after last year’s worlds — on Oct. 31, in an out-of-competition test.

She loses four gold medals at the European short-course championships in Denmark. She also loses two short-course world records set late last year, including one pending mark. Two of those four were individual races; two, relays.

The source of the positive was a supplement, Cellucor CLK, that she bought Sept. 16 at a GNC near where she lives in California. She said she relied on the advice she got at the GNC store, alleging that she believed “salespersons at vitamin stores in the United States were well-educated and knowledgable concerning the products they sold.”

She said she was “more inclined to question the qualifications of individuals selling supplements in Russia than in the United States.”

The level of her naiveté, frankly, borders on the breathtaking.

We are now 15 or so years after the creation of the World and U.S. Anti-Doping Agencies, and both have spent much time and energy reaching out to athletes in a bid to make clear they have to know what goes into their bodies.

And here is a world-class swim racer, indeed an Olympic medalist and world champion, relying on the advice of a clerk at a GNC?

From the decision: “Ms. Efimova testified that although she is an elite swimmer who had been through numerous doping controls and although she is aware that she is responsible for what she puts in her body, Ms. Efimova has never been given specific anti-doping education and has never been taught how to be a wise consumer of supplements, a problem her lawyer contended was compounded by the fact that her English is self-taught and by her relative unfamiliarity with the supplement market in the United States.”

How can it be she had never been given specific anti-doping education? Seriously?

Just so everyone understands the responsibilities here — though she has been training for the past four years primarily at USC, the party bearing the burden for educating her is the Russian Swimming Federation.

The panel, apparently being diplomatic, said “the fact that no anti-doping education was provided to Ms. Efimova by the RSF is disappointing and put her at a disadvantage in fulfilling her responsibility to be a savvy consumer.”

Is she alone in that regard? If not, how does that get fixed? If she is not alone, that is a significant problem, particularly since, again, next year’s worlds will be in Kazan.

A quick look at the label, as the decision noted, would have clearly shown DHEA listed as an ingredient.

As for her English-language abilities:

Efimova has been in the United States for roughly four years. Nobody is asking her to write like Faulkner. But four years? For sure she should be conversant.

Again, the level of the naiveté at issue surely must give the reasonable person pause.

At any rate, all of this is in its way prelude to what may well be the most intriguing part of the matter.

Some context:

Before moving to LA, Efimova had been coached by her father, Andrey. For the five years before that, she had been coached by Irina Vyatchanina. Efimova moved to SoCal to swim with the Trojan Swim Club, headed by coach Dave Salo.

Salo is, simply put, one of the great coaches in the world.

Here is the thing, though:

Two others, Jessica Hardy and Ous Mellouli, had positives while at USC, Hardy for a supplement, Mellouli for Adderall.

Side note: Howard Jacobs represented them both.

Now Hardy and Mellouli are both Olympic medalists and, yes, absolutely, positive role models. For sure. If you were a seventh-grade teacher, you totally would want Jessica Hardy or Ous Mellouli to come to your class and tell your kids their story of achievement.

Two other notes:

Salo had nothing to do with either positive test.

And he had nothing to do with Efimova’s positive.

In swim circles, however, there have been whispers — like, what is going on there under all that California sunshine?

That’s why perhaps this is maybe the most compelling excerpt in the entire decision, the panel devoting an entire paragraph to it, because what is more essential than someone’s reputation?

“According to Ms. Efimova, her coach at the Trojan Swim Club, David Salo, is adamantly opposed to the use of supplements of any kind. She said her coach frequently tells his swimmers that they can get all the nutrition they need through a well-balanced diet and that supplements are unnecessary.”

If you move halfway around the world … to place your trust in your coach … and your coach is one of the best … and he says don’t use supplements … and you do, anyway … it’s appropriate for the right people to stand up for the coach, in black and white, for everyone to see, when that coach is showing appropriate leadership.

So let’s everyone recognize, as the FINA Doping Panel did, too, that Dave Salo did the right thing here.

And Yulia Efimova made a mistake.

And — despite the fact that USADA, WADA and other responsible agencies — are screaming from the rooftops not to take supplements, that message is somehow not getting across fully and completely.

So, where are we, and — to quote that most famous of Russian aphorisms — what is to be done?

Phelps having fun, and it's all good

Thirty years ago, amid the delivery of the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games, which proved a huge success, Peter Ueberroth reminded the world of a classic strategy. It works in business. It works in sports. Really, it’s the best strategy for pretty much everything. You under-promise and then you over-deliver.

This is what Michael Phelps and his longtime coach and mentor, Bob Bowman, are doing now in these very first days of the comeback story likely to dominate every swimming story between now and the Rio Summer 2016 Olympic Games.

Michael’s goals? Fun, man. Just here to have fun. 2016? Whatever. Not thinking that far ahead. Just taking it one step at a time. We’ll get there when we get there.

It’s completely shrewd, sophisticated and dazzling in its brilliance.

After years of chasing hard goals — eight-for-eight golds in Beijing, the gymnast Larisa Latynina’s record of 18 overall medals in London — there’s nothing left for Phelps to prove to anyone. He is The Man, and has absolutely, unequivocally earned the right to do this on his own terms.

The thing is, it’s also true.

Enough.

Because, for sure, Phelps has goals. He always has goals.

As he said Wednesday at a news conference, “I always have goals and things that I want to achieve and I have things that I want to achieve now. Bob and I can do anything that we put our minds to.”

Because, for real, Phelps and Bowman assuredly have not through every detail of what the master plan is to get to and through Rio. No way, no how.

Why?

Because it’s April 2014 and they don’t have to.

All Phelps — and Bowman— have to do, right now, is enough to keep the train moving.

Which, as Phelps proved Thursday in sun-blinded Mesa, Arizona, is plenty good enough.

In his first race back after 628 days away, since his butterfly leg in the gold medal-winning leg in the 4x100 medley relay at London 2012 Games, Phelps was put in the last of the 14 heats in the 100 fly.

Phelps watched as rival Ryan Lochte, in Heat 13, went 52.94.

Lochte swam in Lane 4. Phelps drew Lane 4, too. The two of them yukked it up about something as Phelps stepped on the blocks — maybe the absurdity of a jillion cameras recording every move Phelps was making while Lochte, still in the water below, got to watch while Phelps dove over him as Heat 14 got underway.

All Phelps did in Heat 14 was throw down a 52.84, the morning’s fastest time.

Yeah. He was back.

“I felt like a kid, you know, being able to race again and be back at a meet,” Phelps told longtime friend Rowdy Gaines, the 1984 Olympic champion in Mesa working television for Universal Sports.

“I literally felt like a 10-year-old kid, just enjoying it,” Phelps said, which is great, except that the next time a 10-year-old kid throws a 52.8 in the 100 fly please call USA Swimming because that kid needs to be in the Olympics immediately.

The only thing that didn’t go according to script: Phelps usually lags behind the field in the first 50 meters, often making the turn in seventh place. On Thursday morning, he was second. He split the first 50 in 25.15 seconds, the second in 27.69.

All you doubters? Haters? Come on. This is Phelps. He is one of the most competitive human beings ever to inhabit Planet Earth. Did you think he was somehow going to forget how to race?

Especially in the 100 fly, the event in which he is the three-time Olympic champion as well as the world and American record-holder.

This is what Phelps does, and better than anyone, and especially in the butterfly — which is what he is likely to concentrate on going forward.

Do you think — just riffing here — that he would want to try going forward to make amends for the 200 fly in London, a race he seemingly had won but then glided at the end when he shouldn’t have, and South Africa’s Chad le Clos stole by five-hundredths of a second?

Wouldn’t that — just being logical — be a “goal and thing … to achieve now”?

The 200 fly is the Phelps family race; older sister, Whitney, came into the 1996 U.S. Trials in Indianapolis with the best time in the country in the event, and younger brother Michael is a two-time Olympic champion, one of those wins, in Beijing, a then-world record 1:52.03, set with his goggles filled with water.

As amazing as the eight-for-eight is, and it is, the 100 fly three-peat —which by comparison bizarrely gets almost no love — is a profound accomplishment, because that race is so short and in it anything — as the 2008 final, won by one-hundredth of a second, proves — can happen.

Now that 200 fly three-peat is still out there.

Of course, no decisions have been made, or at least announced publicly. It’s possible the 200 individual medley might yet appear on the agenda, too. Or the 100 free. Who knows? Again, and for emphasis: it’s very early.

The prelim set Phelps and Lochte up for Thursday night’s 100 fly final.

Lochte had himself a way busier evening than Phelps. He first swam the 100 free, finishing fourth, in 49.68, behind 2012 Olympic gold medalist Nathan Adrian’s 48.23.

Adrian’s 48.23 will get lost in the swirl but it shouldn’t. It’s the start of the American season and it’s already the third-best time in the world in 2014 — two Australians, James Magnussen, 47.59, and Cameron McEvoy, 47.65, have gone faster, and the Aussies have already had their national championships.

Adrian won by more than a second; South Africa’s Roland Schoeman finished second, in 49.39.

Another race destined to get missed by all but the most hardy swim geeks — about a half-hour after that 100 free, Katie Ledecky swam the women’s 400 free in 4:03.84, which equaled the world’s best time in 2014. Afterward, she wasn’t even breathing hard.

Lochte got done with the 100 free at 5:11 p.m. local time.

The men’s 100 fly started an hour later.

Once again, at the turn, Phelps — in Lane 4 — was second, in 24.76.

This time, Lochte — in Lane 5 — was first, in 24.64.

The Phelps M.O. over the years has been to pour it on in the back half. Lochte knows this.

In Phelps' first competitive final of 2014, it wasn’t there. Lochte held Phelps off, winning in 51.93. Phelps touched second, in 52.13.

Give Lochte credit. That 51.93 was the second-best time in the world in 2014. Only Takuro Fujii, with a 51.84 at the Japanese nationals, has gone faster.

Phelps, meanwhile, with 52.13, is tied for fourth-best in 2014. Already.

“Down there at the turn, I kind of peeked over, I saw him, and I almost started smiling,” Lochte said in a poolside interview with Gaines that was broadcast live over the PA system in Mesa as well.

“Why? Because you were winning? Because you were ahead?” Phelps said, and everyone laughed.

Gaines, turning to Phelps, asked, what now?

“I’m my hardest critic,” Phelps said, “so I know what I can do there. But, like I have been saying this whole time, I am having fun. I really do mean that. There’s nothing like coming here, swimming before a packed stands — they’re cheering us on, helping us get through the race.

“Obviously, being back in the water with Ryan, it’s always fun when we race. Neither one of us wants to lose to each other. But that’s what makes us faster and faster each time.”

The interview actually began with Gaines asking Lochte if he had noticed anything different about swimming Thursday in Mesa — what with, you know, Phelps back.

Lochte laughed. He said, “I mean, especially this morning, seeing all these cameras, right before I’m about to race — I’m like, ‘Thanks, Michael.’ “

Phelps is back. Lochte, too, from that freaky knee injury.

Jeah, dudes.

For U.S. swimming, it’s all good.

Phelps is back, and why not

A great many people are desperately afraid in this life of failure. Being afraid does only one thing. It holds you back.

Michael Phelps is not, has never been, afraid of failure. He has the courage to dream big dreams -- dreams without limits, without worries about what might happen if they don't come true. 

Phelps is indisputably the greatest swimmer of all time. There can be no argument. As he steps on the blocks Thursday at the Mesa Grand Prix, having said at the London 2012 Olympics that he was done swimming competitively but now having changed his mind, the natural question is, why, and the one that goes with it for so many is, but isn’t he afraid of damaging his reputation?

The second one first: no.

For Michael Phelps, this is absolutely opportunity, and nothing but.

This is, in plain speech, what sets greatness apart.

Maybe Phelps won’t win every race between now and the close of the 2016 Rio Games.

Strike that. It’s guaranteed that he won’t, starting with the series this weekend in Arizona.

So what?

It does not matter.

For Phelps, what matters is the opportunity to test himself, to see how good he can be.

As he said Wednesday at a news conference, “I’m doing this for me," adding a moment later, "I am looking forward to wherever this road takes me."

Phelps has never — again, never ever never — said, “I want to win x medals.”

He has always said his goals are to grow the sport of swimming and to be the very best he can be.

His impact is broad and deep:

-- The caliber of athletes in the sport is so much better. Guys coming into college are now swimming the 200 freestyle roughly two seconds faster than they did even just a few years ago. Why? Because they watched Phelps swim, whether in 2004 in Athens or 2008 in Beijing, and said to their parents, that guy is awesome and I want to be like that.

-- The U.S. team has its leader back. As great as Missy Franklin or Katie Ledecky are, and they are, and as fantastic an athlete as Ryan Lochte is, and he is, Phelps is incomparable. He makes everyone better.

Why?

This is a guy who loves to race. He loves to win. He hates to lose.

So why, after proving without a shadow of a doubt — 22 Olympic medals, 18 of them gold — is he back once more to see how good he can be?

Wrong question.

It’s not why,

It’s why not?

Phelps is 28. He turns 29 in July.

When he was in his early teens, just getting started with his coach and mentor Bob Bowman, Phelps would do what Bowman told him to do because, well, Bowman told him to do it. In Athens in 2004, when he won eight medals, six gold, same. In 2008 in Beijing, when they hatched the plan that led to the eight-for-eight gold, same.

By the 2011 world championships in Shanghai, that didn’t work so much anymore. Phelps had already achieved the unthinkable in Beijing; in Shanghai, he acknowledged he needed to find motivation.

In short, that’s what Phelps said by the end of the Games in London; he didn’t have the same motivation.

Though elemental, this is essential to understand: swimming is hard work, arguably the hardest Olympic sport there is, because it is often decided by hundredths of a second and it reveals, truly reveals, whether you have put in the work. That’s what Phelps learned in Shanghai. He hadn’t done the work and at that meet Lochte owned him.

By London, Phelps had done the work in every race but -- as the results emphatically showed -- the 400 individual medley. Indeed, that race proves the point. Phelps swam it because he wanted the test, caring not at all about the prospect of "failure," if fourth place at the Olympics is "failure." The instant know-it-all critics who started braying that Phelps might be done? It was his first final of the Games and, as he said immediately afterward, "It was just a crappy race." He would go on to win six medals.

After London? Time to take time off.

Now?

The intense competitive drive that makes Phelps who he is has not gone away. It never did. As if. Phelps has a lot of guys who want to hang out with him. That doesn’t fill him up. That might be good for a weekend, or a week.

Golf? For fun — sure. As an everyday thing? Come on.

Let’s get one thing perfectly straight, and for all time: Phelps is super-smart and, for that matter, multitasks as well as any CEO. He is not, nearing 29, going to go to college; when he was training in Michigan before the 2008 Games, he was not working toward a four-year degree (though he is a big Maize and Blue fan).

Swimming, from the time he was little, not only provided Phelps with structure. Fundamentally, it gave him purpose.

Again —for Phelps, swimming was the ultimate provider of structure in his world. Then and now, it provides him a base of friends. Too, it offers a coach and staff with guidance.

The realization Phelps doubtlessly has arrived at now, in 2014, is that he isn’t coming to Bowman and the North Baltimore Aquatic Club because he has to.

He wants to.

That makes all the difference.

Phelps said Wednesday he weighed 187 pounds in 2012 in London. Afterward, he allowed himself to get to 225. Now he's at 194.

Bowman has assembled at the club a world-class roster that includes the likes of French sprinter Yannick Agnel; American sprinter Conor Dwyer; Tunisian long-distance ace Ous Mellouli; and more.

If you know Phelps, however, you know that for him now training has to be more fun than less. And for him the person who most often makes training fun is Allison Schmitt, who is, among other things, the London 2012 women’s 200-meter gold medalist.

Schmitt, who moved to Baltimore last year after finishing up at the University of Georgia, is making something of a comeback herself. She had a crummy nationals and — to everyone’s shock — missed making the U.S. team that swam at the 2013 world championships in Barcelona.

Phelps and Schmitt have always had something of a brother-sister relationship. They make each other laugh. He’s good for her. She’s good for him.

"I can't say it enough," he said Wednesday. "I am having fun."

As for those 2013 worlds — it was there, in Barcelona, that it became evident to everyone who knows swimming that Phelps would be back.

The only question was when.

The U.S. men’s 4x100 freestyle relay team lost to the French — with Agnel. Having Phelps sure would have helped. He was in the stands that day, texting Bowman, the U.S. men’s 2013 coach, critiques of the race. Phelps takes enormous pride in team and country, and he wants the American men to own that relay.

Phelps also surely would have noticed that Chad le Clos of South Africa won the 100-meter butterfly in 51.08 seconds, the 200 fly in 1:54.32. When he has put in the work, Phelps swims faster than those times.

Le Clos isn’t swimming in Arizona — though there are, in total, 27 Olympic medalists from seven countries who between them have 97 medals, 51 gold, registered to swim in Mesa.

Lochte — and it must be acknowledged he is an extraordinary talent, with 11 Olympic medals, five gold — is on the start lists.

Giving credit where it is due, Lochte did his thing in the 400 IM in London. Phelps might well be done— as the Mesa Grand Prix proves, never say never — with that event. That said, both guys have traditionally duked it out in the 200 IM and if this weekend and for the foreseeable future Phelps swims even shorter events, so be it. He said Wednesday he would be scratching the 100 free in Mesa but would be swimming the 100 fly -- hardly a surprise.

But Phelps knows one other thing, too, and Lochte knows it as well, looking ahead — way ahead — to Rio:

At the Olympic Games, the 200 IM traditionally comes just minutes, literally minutes, after the 200 backstroke. Lochte swims the 200 back. Phelps does not. The 200 back is a killer. It leaves the legs feeling like wood. It is a testament to Lochte’s will that he even tries the double.

Always, always, always remember this about Michael Phelps:

He loves to race. He loves to win. He hates to lose.

This just has to stop

The international sportswriters' association, which goes by the acronym AIPS, held its two-day executive committee meeting this week in Doha, Qatar. The meeting's guest of honor was Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the secretary general of the Qatar Olympic Committee, who is keenly sophisticated and moves fluidly between Arab and western cultures. The Qataris bid -- unsuccessfully -- for the Summer Games of 2016 and 2020, cut early on in each round by the International Olympic Committee. Of course, soccer's World Cup is set for Qatar in 2022.

His Excellency told the ladies and gentlemen of the press that sport is fundamentally one of the pillars of Qatar's development plan. This year, the Qataris will organize 40 major sports events. By 2020, he said, the goal is to stage a big event every week of the year.

And, of course, he said, to bid again for the Olympics. Maybe for 2024. Possibly 2028.

If you have been to Doha, actually been on the ground, you know that there is serious commitment there. The new president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, has long had extensive ties to the Middle East, so one would imagine the climate -- so to speak -- for a Gulf bid would be as good as it could ever get.

There's only one thing that could stop a Doha bid dead in its tracks, and it's not the heat. Nor is it the capacity, infrastructure or even the impact on television schedules.

It's this:

This photo offers irrefutable evidence of everything the Olympic values -- friendship, excellence, respect -- are not.

This sort of intolerance, indeed discrimination, has to stop. Now. And forever more.

This screenshot shows the start of the women's 100-meter individual medley at swimming's World Cup stop in Doha -- happening more or less about the same stretch of time His Excellency and some of the world's leading writers were meeting to talk about all the exciting things happening in the Qatari capital.

In Lane 5 is Amit Ivry of Israel.

The Israeli flag that should be depicted in the graphic display in the host broadcast feed has instead been washed out.

This incident marked just one of several episodes directed against Israeli swimmers at the World Cup stops in both Dubai (Oct. 17-18) and Doha (Oct. 20-21).

On Day 1 in Dubai, Israeli swimmers were not properly identified, either by announcers on the scoreboard. That way, their name and national flag wouldn't have to be shown, a veteran national-team swimmer, Gal Nevo, told a leading Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz.

Things in Dubai were apparently back to normal by Day 2. Nevo, for instance, announced as from the country "I-S-R" on Day 1, was announced as from "Israel" on Day 2.

He said, "Suddenly, you arrive in a country that has refused to recognize you until now, and know that the next time we'll be here they won't play those games with us. I don't know how many television viewers we're talking about but the people in the emirate saw the Israeli flag over and over again, and were exposed to the country's sporting aspect."

That this sort of thing happened in Dubai can not have come entirely as a huge shock.

After all, this was where in 2009 the Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer was refused a visa for the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships; tour officials fined organizers $300,000 and said all qualified players had to be able to play or the tournament's sanctioning would be at risk. Peer has since played in Dubai.

That said, recent years have seen a veritable catalogue of incidents in which politics and sport have mixed in all the wrong ways, consistently with the Israelis as the target.

At the 2004 Athens Olympics, for instance, Iran's judo world champion, Arash Miresmaeli, refused to take to the mat for a first-round match against Israel's Ehud Vaks in the under-66 kg class. Iranian officials later awarded Miresmaeli the same $120,000 given its gold-medal winners at those 2004 Games for what was called a "great act of self-sacrifice."

At the 2008 Beijing Games, Iran's Mohammed Alirezaei refused to compete alongside Israeli swimmer Tom Be'eri in the heats of the 100 backstroke.

At the 2010 Olympic Youth Games in Singapore, in the final of the boys under-48 kg class in taekwondo, Gili Haimovitz of Israel won when Mohammed Soleimani of Iran proved a no-show, officially claiming he had aggravated an old injury to his left leg. Soleimani skipped the medals ceremony as well -- missing the Israeli flag and anthem.

In 2012, Algerian kayaker Nasreddine Baghdadi withdrew from a World Cup event in which Israeli Roei Yellin was entered, and the president of the Algerian Olympic Committee, Rachid Hanifi, said all its athletes might refuse to compete against Israelis at the London Games: "There is an obligation to ask our government if we have to meet Israel in sport."

That prompted the then-IOC president, Jacques Rogge, to declare that only serious injury would be accepted as an excuse for not competing at the London Games, that suspicious withdrawals would be checked by an "independent medical board" and that bogus withdrawals would lead to unspecified sanctions.

Just two weeks ago, Tunisia's tennis federation ordered its top player, Malek Jaziri, ranked 169th in the world, not to play Israel's Amir Weintraub in the quarterfinals of a lower-tier ATP event in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

International Tennis Federation spokesman Nick Imison told Associated Press he believed the case was a first-of-its-kind in tennis.

The constitution of swimming's international federation, which goes by the acronym FINA, is absolutely clear that discrimination on the grounds of "race, sex, religion or political affiliations" is out of bounds.

True, FINA officials absolutely had been put on notice by events in Dubai. But Doha? This was where a 20-year-old Shahar Peer in 2008 -- the year before the episode in Dubai -- had reached the round--of-16. Moreover, her first night in the city, the tourney director had even taken her and her entourage out to dinner at a Moroccan restaurant in the traditional Souk district marketplace.

And yet -- Doha.

According to a report in the Times of Israel, it's not just that the Israeli flag was not displayed in the computer graphics of the races. Some races in which Israelis swam were not broadcast. The Israeli flag was removed from outside the venue; a tweet was posted Sunday complaining about the flag's presence before it was taken down from outside the swim complex, according to the Doha News.

How this all happened remains entirely unclear. Who precisely was responsible -- also uncertain.

FINA on Wednesday issued a statement saying that it reacted to events in both Dubai and Doha as soon as it knew. In Doha, for instance, FINA officials say they were told the full scope of what had happened only 15 minutes before the end of Day 2.

The statement says FINA "guarantees" that "all steps will be taken in the future for such acts not to occur again."

This is particularly key because the world short-course championships are due to be held in Doha Dec. 3-7, 2014. Dubai and Doha are also scheduled to host further World Cup events ahead of the worlds.

FINA's executive director, Cornel Marculescu, told Associated Press the two organizing committees apologized for what he called these "stupid things." He also said, "Next year we have the world championships and these things will not happen anymore."

Marculescu is absolutely right to label the incidents so forthrightly and to  say enough is enough.

Now: Doha has a huge incentive to bid for the Olympics.

There are all kinds of bold steps that could be taken. For instance, there are apologies of all sorts. Some are private. Some are meant to be much more public.

Or: there are ways of reaching out, gestures of goodwill -- say, swim clinics in which regional stars teach local kids. Could it hurt to invite Amit Ivry, winner of the silver medal in the 100 medley at the Doha 2013 World Cup?

At the least -- all the Israelis all ought to be taken out to dinner next December at the worlds, everyone ought to shake hands and pose for some tourist-like pictures in the Souk and then all hands can get on with the business of swimming.

The Israelis -- just like they were anybody else. That's what they, and everybody, deserve.

After all, that's the fundamental promise inherent in Olympic sport -- that everyone can get along and that everyone deserves a chance to do their best, however good-enough that best might be. If the Qataris want to invite the world in 2024 or 2028 and be taken dead seriously about it -- an Olympics is way different than the World Cup -- that is the deal. Anything less is a non-starter.

Not just one super swimmer

BARCELONA -- No, Michael Phelps did not swim even one stroke at the 2013 world championships. Yes, his presence hung over the meet -- it being a year to the day that he touched the wall for the last time in the winning medley relay in London, as was helpfully noted in a Facebook post by the U.S. Olympic Team. Is he coming back? Who knows? Whatever Phelps ultimately opts to do, keep at his golf game or again take the plunge, these championships, which wrapped up Sunday in memorable fashion, with the bang of the medley relays, will be long remembered because -- if this is indeed the post-Phelps era -- swimming now boasts not just one super-amazing swimmer.

It has a bunch of them.

Phelps has always said he wanted, first and foremost, to grow the sport. Evidence came shining through across eight days at the Palau Sant Jordi.

American Missy Franklin, 18, won six gold medals. She joined Phelps, Mark Spitz and East German Kristin Otto as the only swimmers to win as many as six at the worlds or the Olympics. Otto won six at the 1988 Seoul Games.

Last year in London, Franklin won four golds and a bronze. She is -- at the risk of understatement -- an extraordinary talent.

At a late-night news conference, she was asked: "Missy, after all you have achieved here in Barcelona, do you start feeling like the female Michael Phelps?"

She smiled. "No," she said. "I just feel like Missy. I think that's all I ever want to be, is just Missy.

"I don't ever want to want to take after someone else, because in swimming everyone leaves their own unique mark. No one will ever do what Michael did, or how Michael did it. It has been incredible watching him. But I hope to kind of have my own unique traits that make me known for just being me in the swimming world instead of anyone else."

Franklin's immediate reaction after her final medal, a big win Sunday night by the U.S. women in the medley: she is taking a break from swimming until she shows up in a couple weeks at Berkeley for her freshman year.

The U.S. team dominated the swim medal count, with 29 overall in the pool, 14 gold. Including open water, the U.S. total: 31. Even so, these worlds underscored swimming's phenomenal worldwide growth, and the emergence of stars from all over.

For some context:

At the height of the craziness that was the plastic-suit craze, the 2009 world championships in Rome, swimmers set 43 world records. There was talk then that those marks might last 10 or 20 years.

Here, swimmers set six world records -- three in one day, Saturday.

All six records, intriguingly, were set in women's races.

Lithuania's Ruta Meilutyte, just 16, set two world records herself, in the 50 and 100 breaststroke. Her mark in the 50, in Saturday's semifinal no less, came mere hours after Russia's Yulia Efimova had in the preliminaries shaved two-hundredths of a second off the 29.8 record that American Jessica Hardy had set in 2009; Meilutyte lowered the new mark, 29.78, by a whopping three-tenths of a second, to 29.48.

Then, in Sunday's final, as if to emphasize just how brutal the competition has become, Efimova won the race, touching in 29.52. Meilutyte came in second, in 29.59. Hardy finished third, in 29.8 -- which, until just Saturday, had been world-record time.

"For her to swim so fast -- this is an amazing time," Efimova said. "But today I win. And this is great."

In Sunday's night's men's 1500, China's Sun Yang prevailed, in 14:41.15. That meant he won all three distance races, the 1500, 800 and 400 -- pulling off the distance triple that Australian legend Grant Hackett did at the world championships in Montreal in 2005.

He was named the male swimmer of the meet.

The female swimmer of the meet?

American Katie Ledecky, also 16. She also set two world records -- in the 800 and the 1500, the mark in the 1500 going down by six seconds. She also won all three distance races -- again, the 400, 800 and 1500. Moreover, she swam a leg on the winning 4x200 relay.

Ledecky said she had hoped for three wins and one world record -- in any of the three races, she said.

Though "it means a lot to me to get this award," Ledecky said, Franklin "deserves it probably more than I do" and "we are all so proud of her."

This must be understood about Katie Ledecky:

Out of the pool, she is as pleasant, charming and delightful as any model teen-ager -- who plans now to head home and apply for her driver's permit -- can be.

When she steps onto the blocks, however, she acquires -- this is meant as the highest of compliments -- a cold-blooded instinct to win.

She explained on Saturday where it comes from: "I've always had it, from the time I started swimming. When you love it, you want to do well." Comparatively, it's not a big deal to her to swim against the world's best: "When you get to a [big] meet, it's nothing new. You just compete against the girls next to you. That is what swimming is all about."

At a news conference Sunday, Ledecky was asked why it is that the world records here fell only to women.

She said, "Michael Phelps just retired. He left a really great legacy. I think a lot of great people have been inspired by him. Not just the male swimmers but definitely female swimmers as well. I think the world of swimming is really fast right now. I think the women are stepping up. The men are trying to chase some of Michael's records, which are really tough. I don't know -- it's just a handful of female swimmers that are starting to do this."

South Africa's Chad le Clos won the men's 100 and 200 butterflys, coming from behind in the 100 -- he was fifth at the turn -- just the way Phelps used to.

Cesar Cielo of Brazil won the men's 50 free in 21.32 but the race produced a new star, silver medalist Vlad Morozov, who touched in 21.47. Morozov, who moved to Southern California from Siberia when he was 14 and swam for USC in college, tore up the 2013 NCAA meet, breaking the 100-yard sprint record set by -- who else -- Cielo.

The U.S. medal count in the pool, incidentally, would have been an even 30 -- and the gold total 15 -- but for an unusual disqualification Sunday night in the men's medley.

On the first exchange, with Matt Grevers finishing the backstroke leg and Kevin Cordes jumping off to do the breaststroke, the electronic timer caught Cordes jumping precisely one-hundredth of a second too soon. The U.S. team finished the race in first place, with Ryan Lochte swimming the fly and Nathan Adrian swimming the anchor freestyle, and by more than a second -- but was promptly disqualified.

The incident was evocative of an exchange at the worlds in Melbourne in 2007, when Ian Crocker jumped off in the medley prelims exactly one-hundredth of a second too soon as well. That kept Phelps from winning eight gold medals there.

Grevers said the mix-up might have been as much on him as on Cordes, a promising breaststroker expected to be one of the world's best by the 2016 Rio Games. Adrian said, "It falls on all of our shoulders. It's up to all of us to help bring it back. I have said this before. If us four ever step up again, we are never going to have a disqualification. That's for sure."

Bob Bowman, Phelps' longtime mentor who is the head U.S. men's coach here, similarly called the episode Sunday a "great learning experience."

He urged perspective: "DQ'ing a relay in the first world championships of the quad is one thing. Doing it in the Olympics … would be 10 times worse, right?" The trick going forward: to "re-think how they're gong to react to things in this environment and just do better."

Earlier in the week, Phelps had been in the stands texting Bowman when the U.S. was racing.

Asked if Phelps had sent a text or two with some thoughts on the medley, Bowman said, "Not yet."

Then again, that was just moments after.