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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Michael Phelps a bit miffed that he’s not going faster

Paul Newberry Associated Press

ATHENS, Ga. – Michael Phelps has never been the patient type.

He wants to go faster – right now.

The winningest athlete in Olympic history figured he would be putting up better times by this stage of his comeback.

“That the hard part for him,” his longtime coach, Bob Bowman, said Thursday.

Phelps will get a final tuneup before the two biggest events of the year when he competes in a special meet at the University of Georgia, going against Ryan Lochte and several of the world’s top swimmers.

Beginning today, Phelps will take part in three events over three days, another important step in showing how fit he is since coming out of retirement.

In less than a month, he’ll be competing in the national championships in Irvine, California, followed two weeks later by the Pan Pacific Championships in Australia.

“It helps Michael a lot to race,” Bowman said. “If he’s just training, it gets a little old.”

Phelps will race in his first event of the Bulldog Grand Slam today, the preliminaries of the 100 butterfly. He will also compete in the 100 backstroke on Saturday, followed by the 100 free on the final day.

This will be the fourth meet for the 29-year-old swimmer since he ended his retirement.

He left the sport after the 2012 London Games, declaring he had met all his goals with 18 golds and 22 medals overall, far more than any other Olympic athlete.

“When you take a whole year off, that’s a lot of time,” Bowman said. “We would always tell him, ‘For every day you take off, it takes two to get back to where you were.’ Well, by that, he’s going to need two years to get back to where he was at London.”

Three weeks ago at Santa Clara, Phelps took on the most daunting workload of his comeback by racing in four events over three days. He tied for first in the 100 butterfly, was second in the 100 and 200 free, and finished third in the 200 individual medley.

That last event was especially frustrating for Phelps, who was swimming it for the first time since taking the gold in London. He led through the first three laps, but tired on the freestyle leg and was passed by both Conor Dwyer and Chase Kalisz.

Phelps’ time was 1 minute, 59.76 seconds, which was right in line with Bowman’s expectations.

Not so for Phelps, who once held the world record and edged Lochte in the last Olympics with a time that was nearly 5 1/2 seconds faster.

After the meet in Georgia, the next two events will determine the U.S. team for the 2015 world championships in Russia.