Michael Phelps: His problems with the 400 IM and what his work load will be like in Beijing

From the Kansas City Star: "COLUMBIA | Michael Phelps won the 100-meter butterfly Monday morning at the Missouri Grand Prix. He beat Ian Crocker, the world record holder, to do it.

Ten minutes later, he raced again, in the 100-meter backstroke, and narrowly missed beating Aaron Peirsol, the world record holder in that event.

Twenty minutes later, Phelps was back in the pool, racing in the 100-meter breaststroke. He took sixth. But that was beside the point.

His Club Wolverine coach, Bob Bowman, designed the grueling schedule for two reasons: to get Phelps used to swimming several events a day in preparation for the Beijing Olympics, where he will have to swim 18 times or more in a week, and to use the back-to-back-to-back 100-meter tests as building blocks for the 400-meter individual medley.

“Those three components today will make him better,” Bowman said. [Link]

From the Baltimore Sun: But it was a race from Sunday, the 400 individual medley, that Phelps will remember from this event. He didn't swim well, finishing almost eight seconds off his world-record time.

"That IM is still killing me," said Phelps, who trained much of his career at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club before moving to Ann Arbor, Mich. "It's such an important event for us this summer. It's going to start off the meet both at trials and the Olympics. For me to have a successful year, I'll have to start trials out on a good note to have a good 400 IM. If I start off with a bad swim, it's going to be hard to bounce back." [Link]