Bob Bowman

Michael Phelps could very well become the greatest Olympian of all time but he says when he retires from swimming after the London Games, he plans to conquer a new sport: Horse racing. Phelps tells Yahoo that he's quite serious about buying a race horse with his longtime coach Bob Bowman. He tells the news organization that the two have discussed it repeatedly. In fact, he has his eye on Preakness 2014 -- if not the Triple Crown. "I think it would be cool," Phelps told Yahoo, adding that he hopes to hit all of next year's Triple Crown races as an observer, if not a shopper.

He's back ... unless he's not. Rumors that Michael Phelps, already the most decorated Olympian, is planning to come out of retirement sent the swimming community abuzz Friday night. Phelps, the Baltimore native who retired with a lifetime 22 medals, 18 of them gold after the 2012 London Games, threw some water on the notion that spread after a blogger and a Florida television station said he was headed back to the pool. "Why do I keep getting texts about coming back? Do [people]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Baltimore lawyer Frank Morgan helped swimmer Michael Phelps , then 16 years old, select Peter Carlisle as his agent. Phelps was years away from stardom, but Carlisle aggressively marketed his client, hoping to eventually elevate him beyond the confines of an Olympic sport that mattered to a broad audience only every four years. Earlier this year, Carlisle signed another client - at the suggestion of Morgan - and put her on the Phelps plan. He's already signed a deal for jockey Rosie Napravnik to endorse Snickers - an agreement proposed before Carlisle learned that the candy bar was named for a horse - and has another in the works that could be announced before Preakness.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Baltimore lawyer Frank Morgan helped swimmer Michael Phelps , then 16 years old, select Peter Carlisle as his agent. Phelps was years away from stardom, but Carlisle aggressively marketed his client, hoping to eventually elevate him beyond the confines of an Olympic sport that mattered to a broad audience only every four years. Earlier this year, Carlisle signed another client - at the suggestion of Morgan - and put her on the Phelps plan. He's already signed a deal for jockey Rosie Napravnik to endorse Snickers - an agreement proposed before Carlisle learned that the candy bar was named for a horse - and has another in the works that could be announced before Preakness.

Editor's note: Coming Saturday, The Sun introduces a new home design section. This is the centerpiece of the first print edition. There's a suspicious dearth of chrome, not a lick of black leather and the place is utterly without a bar. Not one wall — and there are quite a few — is holding up, Atlas-style, an intimidating fortress of electronic equipment. Bob Bowman's new home, at least on paper, is a bachelor pad. But the truth is, the swim coach famous for leading Michael Phelps to Olympic gold has worked hard to make the house he built on 37 acres off a winding Monkton road feel warm, livable and very, very real.

Michael Phelps may have retired from competitive swimming after the London Games, but his coach is adding on work: He has signed with TSE Consulting, a global firm that specializes in working with sports federations. Bowman, who shepherded Phelps' record-breaking Olympic career from start to finish, will join the company's Sport Performance division, TSE Consulting announced Monday. Bowman said he will consult with sports organizations and national governing bodies, analyzing their past performances and offering strategies on how to improve them.

If you made a flip-book of the hundreds of photographs they've posed together for over the years, you would see Michael Phelps growing up before your eyes, getting taller and more muscular, while his coach, Bob Bowman, looks remarkably the same. With the same smallish glasses and the same close-clipped hair, Bowman became himself some time ago, while Phelps has evolved from 11-year-old raw talent to 27-year-old Olympic great - due in no small part to the constant in his life in the pool and beyond: his coach.

He's back ... unless he's not. Rumors that Michael Phelps, already the most decorated Olympian, is planning to come out of retirement sent the swimming community abuzz Friday night. Phelps, the Baltimore native who retired with a lifetime 22 medals, 18 of them gold after the 2012 London Games, threw some water on the notion that spread after a blogger and a Florida television station said he was headed back to the pool. "Why do I keep getting texts about coming back? Do [people]

BEIJING - It does not matter where Bob Bowman lays his head to rest at night - and it could be anywhere, from Baltimore to Barcelona, Ann Arbor to Beijing - he does not hear his alarm clock in the morning. He is always awake long before it wails, usually on the early side of 5 a.m. "I bounce out of bed," he says. Bowman always sets the alarm, though. And he always turns it off. He is meticulous that way, disciplined and regimented. It is the first item on his daily mental checklist. He embraces the morning as passionately as his prodigy, swimmer Michael Phelps, loathes it. "That's one of the reasons I'm diametrically opposed to Michael," the 43-year-old Bowman says.

Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time and current Canton dweller , headed north to visit another of the state's most successful sportsmen, horse trainer Graham Motion. Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, tweeted the above photo of the two outside one of Motion's barns at the peaceful, sprawling Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton this afternoon. It was Bowman who got Phelps into racing. He'd picked up an interest years ago because a swimming coach he was working with liked to go out to the races.

Horses chasing a spot in the Kentucky Derby this year must, for the first time, compile points (instead of graded earnings) by finishing in the top four in a series of races chosen by the staff at Churchill Downs. The revised qualification rules are meant to make it easier for the common fan to follow the Derby trail. So let's keep this simple: the hunt really began last week, with the first two races worth a total of 85 points (50-20-10-5). Previous races had only been worth 17 (10-4-2-1)

The last time the Ravens were in the Super Bowl, Michael Phelps was a 15-year-old boy who had just gone to his first Olympics but had yet to win any of the 22 medals that last year made him the most decorated Olympian of all time. Plus, on the day his beloved Ravens were playing in Tampa -- Jan. 28, 2001 -- Phelps was across the Atlantic Ocean. "I was in Paris for a swim meet," Phelps recalled Friday, when he dropped by the Super Bowl media center. "And we tried to set the alarm to wake up in the night, but we slept through it. " Phelps, who retired from swimming after his fourth Olympics in London last year, cleared his calendar to make sure he could attend this year's game.

After rewriting the Olympic record books for swimming, Michael Phelps and his longtime coach might have the Kentucky Derby in their sights with a 3-year-old colt named Cerro who won a race Saturday at Gulfstream Park for Team Valor International. Baltimore's Phelps and Bob Bowman joined the Team Valor group that races Cerro after he finished third at Gulfstream in Hallandale Beach, Fla., on Jan. 1 for Maryland-based trainer Graham Motion. Team Valor and Motion won the Derby two years ago with Animal Kingdom.

Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time and current Canton dweller , headed north to visit another of the state's most successful sportsmen, horse trainer Graham Motion. Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, tweeted the above photo of the two outside one of Motion's barns at the peaceful, sprawling Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton this afternoon. It was Bowman who got Phelps into racing. He'd picked up an interest years ago because a swimming coach he was working with liked to go out to the races.

Michael Phelps can swim. Michael Phelps can golf. And finally here's a physical activity that Michael Phelps is, frankly, pretty bad at: crowd surfing. The Olympian tried to ride the waves of a crowd the other night at XS nightclub in Las Vegas. The crowd was into it, shouting, "Michael! Michael!" And Phelps was game. But after mere seconds, the ride was over and Phelps was on the floor. Don't worry, reports say he wasn't hurt. Perhaps just a bit embarrassed. Party foul? Or just a chance to find the Bob Bowman of crowd surfing, train and come back in four years.

Michael Phelps may have retired from competitive swimming after the London Games, but his coach is adding on work: He has signed with TSE Consulting, a global firm that specializes in working with sports federations. Bowman, who shepherded Phelps' record-breaking Olympic career from start to finish, will join the company's Sport Performance division, TSE Consulting announced Monday. Bowman said he will consult with sports organizations and national governing bodies, analyzing their past performances and offering strategies on how to improve them.

One in a series of occasional articles on Michael Phelps and his path to the 2004 Olympics. When he swam in the 2000 Olympics, Michael Phelps was 15, the youngest American to earn a trip to Sydney, Australia. Now that Phelps is 18 and a young man atop his sport, does he have any more input into his training routine? "Nope," Phelps said. That job belongs to his coach at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, Bob Bowman, a bespectacled 38-year-old who has applied a rigorous regimen to a rare talent.

ATHENS -- When Bob Bowman was a boy, he wanted to be John Williams, the movie composer who provided the score for most of Steven Spielberg's flights of fancy. For the last two decades, Bowman has gone about becoming the next Doc Counsilman, the coach who turned Indiana University into a swim power, and Mark Spitz into the best in Olympic history. When Bowman grows up, however, he wants to be Bob Baffert. Bowman, 39, has dumped some of his disposable income into the ownership and breeding of thoroughbred horses.

Bob Bowman, who coached Michael Phelps through his record-breaking Olympic career, won a title himself Friday when he was named Coach of the Year by his professional association. The American Swimming Coaches Association award, given at a banquet in Las Vegas Friday night, puts Bowman on track to break a record himself: It is his fifth time winning the annual award, voted on by fellow coaches, tying him with colleagues Mark Schubert and Eddie Reese. "It's special since it's the last time I'll be working with Michael," Bowman said of Phelps, who retired from competitive swimming after the London Games.

Soaking in a bath tub, Michael Phelps wears nothing but a small swimsuit, a pair of goggles atop his head and a stern look. Next to him, a pair of blue jeans spills from a Louis Vuitton bag. It marks a sophisticated turn as a pitchman for the Baltimore swimmer fresh off setting a record for the most Olympic medals earned in a career. But there's speculation his appearance in an advertising campaign shot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz for the high-end designer's latest campaign could run him afoul of International Olympic Committee rules.