Michael Phelps Hits Reset With New Suit at U.S. Championships

Throughout his rise to Olympic eminence, 14-time gold medalist Michael Phelps used his own fastest times as blinders. In his mind, he tried to beat those times rather than his opponents, a strategy that helped cool him under pressure and drive him even when his closest competitors were finishing body lengths behind.

Now, two years before the 2012 London Games, where Phelps plans to apply the final luster to his Olympic legacy, a ban on swimming's controversial high-tech suits has reset the sport's clock and recast Phelps' preparations.

Without being able to consistently beat the times he posted in now-banned suits, at least in the near term, Phelps must take the long view toward getting ready for London. What he wants to accomplish there, a vision he has shared only with his mom and his coach, will push him through practices and races.

"It's going to be fun to be able to finish my career with a challenge like this on my hands," says Phelps, 25, who is competing at the U.S. championships starting Tuesday in Irvine, Calif., the biggest meet for U.S. swimmers since the ban went into effect Jan. 1.

Wearing full-body suits, some covered entirely in buoyancy-enhancing, friction-reducing, impermeable polyurethane, swimmers set an unprecedented 43 world records in last year's world championships. A less controversial version of the suits, which was permeable and only half covered in polyurethane, made its debut in the months before the 2008 Olympics, where 25 world records were set.

Amid a hue and cry at worlds last summer in Rome -- some of it coming from Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, after Phelps, wearing the 2008 suit made by his longtime sponsor Speedo, lost the 200-meter freestyle to German unknown Paul Biedermann -- FINA, swimming's international governing body, decided to revert to smaller suits made only of textile materials.

Men now wear an old school, knees-to-navel style, called jammers. Phelps has been wearing jammers, introduced by swimmers in the 1990s, since last fall. Women are allowed suits that extend only to their knees and shoulders.

Without the high-tech suits, the records won't be falling at nearly the pace of the last two years.

"Last year, everyone -- swimmers and coaches included -- thought we would not see another world record for 10 to 20 years," says Mark Schubert, USA Swimming's national team head coach. "This year, my prediction is we will see world records at nationals and at Pan Pacs. Not a lot, but we will start to see them."

Television analyst and 1984 Olympic champion Rowdy Gaines still predicts most of the current world records will stand for at least a generation. Phelps holds three of the marks, in the 100 and 200 butterfly and the 400 individual medley.

"It's going to be a huge adjustment for all the swimmers, especially for someone like Michael who thrives on the clock and thrives on best times," Gaines says. "They're going to have to block out the last two or three years and just visualize what it was like two or three years ago."