SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Coming off one of the best races of his career, Michael Phelps was a bit sluggish in morning preliminaries for the 100-meter butterfly at the U.S. national championships Saturday.
He planned to go a lot faster in the evening — and he’s got a time to beat.
Shortly after Phelps posted the second-fastest time in San Antonio, South African rival Chad le Clos won the world championship in the 100 fly with a blistering pace of 50.56 seconds in Kazan, Russia.
A half a world away, Phelps wasn’t anywhere close to that performance, touching in 52.12. Jack Conger was the top qualifier for the evening final in 51.97.
“I was a little slow getting up this morning. I hurt a little bit,” Phelps said, describing his race as “blah.”
“Nothing really exciting about it,” he added.
The winningest athlete in Olympic history is competing at the secondary meet in Texas after being removed from the U.S. team as punishment for his second DUI arrest. But Phelps made it clear he wanted to beat the winning times at the world championships in his three main races: the 100 and 200 fly, as well as the 200 individual medley.
He accomplished that goal in his first event, winning the 200 fly Friday night with the fastest time since he set the world record at the 2009 world championships.
Coming off the excitement of that race, Phelps returned some 14 1/2 hours later for the prelims of the 100 fly. He started slowly and reached the midway point in the middle of the pack, though he did power through the final lap to touch ahead of everyone in his heat.
“I guess I was out a little slow,” Phelps said. “That’s something I’ve got to fix for tonight. I need to be about a second faster.”
Since coming out of retirement in early 2014, Phelps had struggled to get back to where he was at the height of his career. Also, he took a break from training after his DUI arrest, going through six weeks of inpatient therapy in Arizona.
His performance in the 200 fly showed that he’s capable of reclaiming his dominance in the pool. But the emotions of the swim — and what he’s been through over the past year — were a bit overwhelming.
“I think a big thing I really have to focus on over the next year is being able to control the physical and emotional energy,” Phelps said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done a swim like that. That was close to probably my best 200 fly ever. I have to be able to balance the energy a little bit better than I did.”
Asked his goal for the 100 fly final, he pointed to Le Clos’ winning time in Kazan.
“Faster than them,” Phelps said, smiling.
In Kazan, Le Clos kept up his verbal sparring with Phelps.
“I’m just very happy that he’s back to his good form, so he can’t come out and say, ‘Oh, I haven’t been training’ or all that rubbish that he’s been talking,” the South African said. “Next year (at Rio) is going to be Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier.”
Le Clos also said it’s easier for Phelps to put up good times in San Antonio because he’s not racing the best swimmers in the world.
“Look, I don’t want to say it’s easy to swim by yourself, but it’s a lot harder when you know Chad le Clos is coming back at you the last 50 meters,” Le Clos said. “That’s what he’s got to think about really.”
Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman, said his swimmer will undoubtedly take note of everything Le Clos says.
“He’s a motivation machine,” Bowman said of Phelps. “He can turn anything into motivation.”
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AP Sports Writer Andrew Dampf in Kazan, Russia, contributed to this report.
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