Focus on Phelps

Michael Phelps was dazzling his audience at a news conference Tuesday and he wasn’t doing it from the pool.

Though his shoulder shrug and accompanying smile telegraphed the lighthearted intent of his remark, not everyone realized the 19-year-old from Baltimore was just having a little fun before things were to get serious at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in downtown Long Beach.

Phelps begins his road to Athens and pursuit of Mark Spitz’s record seven Olympic gold medals this morning with the preliminaries of the 400-meter individual medley, in which he holds the world record. Tonight’s final at the temporary aquatic complex in a parking lot next to Long Beach Arena will be at 5.

On the eve of the trials, talk was about gold -- maximum gold -- in Athens in August. What is his best-case scenario?

“I win 15 gold medals if I wanted to,” Phelps said. “But ... “ He laughed. “We’re just going to have to go with the flow.”

Minutes later, after the formal news conference was finished, a reporter approached the dais and asked, “Michael, were you serious when you said you thought you could win 15?”

Phelps walked away, smiling, and said: “You never know what can happen.”

At least he was having some fun before what is considered the most pressure-packed meet for American swimmers.

Even though it might seem that Phelps is swimming 15 events, he is not. Nevertheless, his schedule is laced with ambition.

In addition to the 400 individual medley, he is entered in five other individual events: the 200 individual medley, the 100 butterfly, the 200 butterfly, the 200 backstroke and the 200 freestyle.

That six, plus three relays in Athens, add up to nine, not 15.

“It was a total joke,” said Bob Bowman, Phelps’ coach. “It was absolutely a joke.... It will be in all the Australian papers tomorrow, I promise you.”

Joking or not, Phelps’ run at Spitz’s record is especially bold in an era of specialization. Two of his biggest rivals, who train at the University of Texas, are world-record holders in their events, Aaron Peirsol in the 200 backstroke and Ian Crocker in the 100 butterfly. At the Olympics, world-record holder Ian Thorpe of Australia, who thinks Spitz’s mark is out of reach for Phelps, looms in the 200 freestyle.

“If he’s going to show up in your race, you’re going to have to beat him,” backstroker Lenny Krayzelburg said of Phelps.

Breaststroker Ed Moses compared the situation to a pro-wrestling plot, noting that Phelps was facing a tag team of star swimmers.

“Aaron [Peirsol] is probably more like Hulk Hogan. He’s been around for a while. Remember when he knocked out Andre the Giant?” Moses said. “Well, I think Aaron kind of did that to Lenny [Krayzelburg]. Now there’s people knocking at his door. He’ll be somewhere in the middle of the tag team, not the anchor.”

Moses added that Crocker “probably started it all. If there’s anybody out there that wants to see a Phelps-beater, you’re probably looking at Ian. He’s on fire, man. He’s hot. And that’s a great momentum to have going into the biggest meet of your career.”

And Phelps knows it. One of his toughest losses came last summer at the world championships in Barcelona when Crocker beat him in the 100 butterfly and took away his world record. Phelps said several months ago that he had a magazine photo of Crocker on his wall for motivation.

“It’s next to my bed at home right now,” Phelps said.

The Phelps-Spitz talk has intensified because of the $1-million carrot dangled by Speedo should Phelps match Spitz’s gold-medal record in either 2004 or 2008, and because Phelps broke five world records in Barcelona, including two in about an hour, and won six medals overall, four of them gold.

“I want to be able to look back on my swimming career and say I’ve done everything I can and I’m successful,” Phelps said.

“After my swimming career, I don’t want to look back and say, ‘Well, I should have done this or I could have done that.’ We want to do whatever we can to succeed and this is a way to test how strong I am, how ready I am.”

With Phelps facing the possibility of swimming 17 times in seven days, Bowman was asked for his pre-trials verdict.

“Eddie Reese, our men’s Olympic coach, would say that preparation for a meet like this is like a haircut,” Bowman said. “You don’t know if it’s any good or not until it’s too late.”

The Crocker-Phelps showdown in the 100 butterfly will be on Tuesday night, a day after a grueling program for Phelps. On Monday, he has the prelim of the 100 butterfly in the morning, then the final of the 200 backstroke, the final of the 200 individual medley and a semi of the 100 butterfly at night.

Two other anticipated races will be between Jason Lezak of the Irvine Novaquatics and Gary Hall Jr. of The Race Club in the 50 freestyle Tuesday and 100 freestyle Sunday. Hall will be trying to make his third Olympic team, which would equal the mark of his father, Gary Sr.

Jenny Thompson and American-record holder Natalie Coughlin will meet in the 100 freestyle Monday. Thompson won a bronze medal in the 100 free at the 2000 Olympics, tying teammate Dara Torres, and Coughlin is the only American to have dropped under 54 seconds, going 53.99 in 2002.

Two of the events with the most depth appear to be the women’s 100 breaststroke and men’s 100 backstroke. Fighting for two spots in the 100 backstroke are defending Olympic champion Krayzelburg, who is recovering from multiple surgeries, last year’s world champion Peirsol, 1992 gold medalist Jeff Rouse and Stanford’s Randall Bal and Peter Marshall.

“The 100 back is probably the toughest field in the country,” Peirsol said. “The whole heat could do really well at the Olympics. The fact we can only take two guys at the Olympics it says a lot.

“It’s unfortunate that more people can’t go. We could potentially get one through four.”

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Busy Phelps

Michael Phelps entered six events at the Olympic swim trials. He is aiming to become the first American to win five individual events at the Olympics. His schedule for the U.S. Olympic swim trials, which begin today in Long Beach:

* TODAY: Morning: 400 individual medley preliminaries; Evening: 400 individual medley final.

* THURSDAY: Morning: 200 freestyle preliminaries; Evening: 200 freestyle semifinals.

* FRIDAY: Morning: 200 butterfly preliminaries; Evening: 200 freestyle final; 200 butterfly semifinals.

* SATURDAY: Evening: 200 butterfly final.

* SUNDAY: Morning: 200 backstroke preliminaries, 200 individual medley preliminaries; Evening: 200 backstroke semifinals, 200 individual medley semifinals.

* MONDAY: Morning: 100 butterfly preliminaries; Evening: 200 backstroke final, 200 individual medley final, 100 butterfly semifinal.

* TUESDAY: Evening: 100 butterfly final.