"Last Blast before Lock-down!" - Is that a headline or what?

This "Last Blast..." headline comes from Swim News regarding Michael Phelps' Beijing rendezvous. Craig Lord goes hyperbolic over Phelps' schedule of 10 events in five days at Nationals this week and what could possibly be in store in Beijing 2008. Of course Michael Phelps throws some sugar on the hyperbole with a little Mark-Spitz-like rhetorical flare: "...If I can do that, who knows what else I can do?" [Link]

Then Bowman jumps in with the Gladiator stuff: "...This is just kind of to establish our starting point for next year," Bowman told AP. "For Michael, it's not just the pressure of the training and the racing - it's the scrutiny of 24-7 living in a fishbowl for a whole year. I wanted to give him a little bit of time where he had a little bit of flexibility before he gets into ... the lock-down. After this, it's pretty much into the lock-down." (Subsequent reaction of the AP reporter after he heard the word lock-down [Link])

This photo comes from CoachCashMoney's photo stream at Flickr.com