He tinkered with his stroke and exhausted his muscles in the weight room. He grew a mustache. He won some races and lost a few. He just missed out on grabbing the world record he wants but doesn't own.
All that, however interesting or mundane, was merely part of a three-month dress rehearsal for swimmer Michael Phelps.
The real opening act - the one likely to provide the first snippet of drama to his return to competitive swimming - begins Tuesday at the national championships in Indianapolis.
And while it's almost a given that we won't see the dominant swimmer we saw in Beijing, it's a bit of a mystery what exactly we will see from Phelps, considering that he considered walking away from the sport this year, and that he was suspended from competition for three months by USA Swimming after a photo was published in a British tabloid that showed him holding a glass bong to his lips at a party.
Phelps is swimming in just four events - the 100-meter freestyle, 200-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly and 200-meter butterfly - and he'll probably be the favorite in all four. But it isn't out of the question that he could be beaten in one of them. He has been beaten a few times in the 100-meter freestyle this summer, although not by an American swimmer. In his most recent meet, the Canada Cup in Montreal, he nearly broke Ian Crocker's world record in the 100-meter butterfly, touching the wall in 50.48 seconds. It was a career-best time for Phelps.
"I think in general he's looking pretty good right now," said Bob Bowman, Phelps' longtime coach. "I don't think either one of us thinks he's perfectly prepared. We've been trying to change his freestyle stroke, which normally takes about a year. We've been trying to do it in about three months."
Phelps' transition to sprinting is his and Bowman's long-term goal, but in the short term, the focus this week is just to make the American team for the 2009 FINA world championships, which will be held this month in Rome. That means finishing in the top two in every race, which, barring something unusual, shouldn't be a problem.
Phelps wasn't available for interviews last week, but he will be speaking today at a news conference in Indianapolis.
