Phelps Wins World Title, Breaks Record in 200 Fly

Michael Phelps vented his frustrations via text messaging with friends back home, got a good night's sleep, then slipped into a familiar swimsuit and posted a familiar result in the 200-meter butterfly at the world championships Wednesday.

He won going away, in world-record time.

"He was in really good spirits," said his coach, Bob Bowman. "You can always tell when something like this is going to happen. He was definitely there."

The night before, Phelps was not in such a comfortable place, wearing a scowl and then the silver medal after getting beaten in the 200-meter freestyle. It was the Beijing Olympic superstar's first loss at a major international meet in four years.

"I've got a bunch of friends that texted me last night that were like, if you want to call me and just yell into the phone and get some frustration out, I have no problem just sitting there listening," Phelps said Wednesday. "So I was having some texting battles with a couple buddies."

His only battle in the pool Wednesday was with the clock.

Finishing in 1 minute, 51.51 seconds, he was nearly two seconds ahead of silver medalist Pawel Korzeniowski of Poland.

Phelps said after his loss Tuesday that he was not in prime physical shape after taking six months off after Beijing. He is lethal in the butterfly, Bowman said, because "he actually does the stroke so beautifully, he conserves energy really well and he can get a lot out of a little bit of training."

The only individual event left on Phelps' schedule this week is the 100-meter butterfly. The 100 fly finals are Saturday. Phelps also is likely to swim in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay Friday and in the butterfly leg of the 4x100-meter medley relay Sunday.

As has become the norm this week, talk turned Wednesday to Phelps' suit choice. At the U.S. championships earlier this month, Phelps donned a neck-to-ankle version of his Speedo LZR for the 200 fly instead of wearing his usual pants-only LZR.

He was planning to wear the full suit again Wednesday, but brought along a new one from his hotel rather than the broken-in one he wanted. The new suit cinched too tight during his warm-up laps, so he changed just before the race into pants.

With nearly everyone else wearing impermeable, all-polyurethane full suits this week -- including the swimmer who beat Phelps on Tuesday, Germany's Paul Biedermann -- it looked like Phelps was making a statement with old-school style.

"That didn't even cross my mind," said Phelps, who has stuck with the half-polyurethane, permeable LZR out of loyalty to his longtime sponsor. "It was just me being comfortable."

Bowman said earlier in the day that he thought in recent months about having Phelps test one of the new suits, "just so I would know for sure in my mind what the difference was. But then I said no, because once he finds out it may just create a conflict."

Now Bowman is threatening to hold Phelps out of meets until FINA, swimming's international governing body, implements new rules it has passed that outlaws the new suits and restricts suit style and material. That could mean Phelps won't swim in two short-course (swum in a 25-meter pool) World Cups in Berlin and Stockholm that Bowman was considering in November.

Short-course races, because they require more turns and quicker starts, would help Phelps work on those parts of his swimming as he transitions to shorter races ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

Even with that transition underway, the 200 fly -- the only event Phelps qualified for at his first Olympics, in 2001 -- "will definitely stay" on Phelps' program, Bowman said. Phelps set his first world record in the 200 fly, in 2001 at age 15. He has now lowered the mark eight times.

"I guess you could call it my bread and butter event," Phelps said.