THE MORTAL MICHAEL PHELPS

His status as arguably the greatest swimmer ever remains untarnished. And yet, over the past few weeks, Michael Phelps has become a mere mortal in the pool.

In Stockholm last week, the man who rewrote the Olympic record books with 8 gold medals in Beijing was relegated to an also-ran in the results column: third in the 100 metres individual medley, disqualified in the 100 back and failed to make the final in the 100 freestyle, where he finished 16th in qualifying in 47.77 seconds. That's almost two seconds slower than Stefan Nystrand's fastest qualifying time of 45.93!


Yes, we are talking about 25 metres, or shortcourse, swimming here. But nonetheless, it's a World Cup circuit and a swimming format where world titles are decided every second year. Next year, December 2010, the venue is Dubai.

And, yes, Phelps was sporting a beard, in a far-from shaved down form that he would be in an Olympic or World Championship final.

But the real reason for Phelps less than stunning performances in Sweden were to do with his attire, or lack of it. Many of the world's elite swimmers are scampering from one meet to another as 2009 comes to a close in a bid to clock times which may not be repeated for close enough to a decade. They are wearing the soon to be outlawed high-tech, polyurethane, performancing-enhancing suits which have caused so much confusion in the sport over the past 12 months or so.

Phelps swam against the odds in his old suit at the world championships in Rome in July, clearly frustrated at the erratic results and eye-catching times being recorded by some swimmers. Among the big improvers was the German Paul Biedermann, who beat Phelps in the 200 free, and has also lowered world records of all-time Australian greats Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett over recent times.

Phelps' indifferent results continued in Berlin last weekend, with a second in the 200 medley and fifth in the 200 butterfly, while failing to reach the final of the 200 free, while the records continued to freefall across a range of events. In fact, 16 world records fell in Berlin -- 16!!!

Thankfully, sanity will prevail soon. From January 1, 2010, rules will dictate that swimmers revert to the more conventional suits, those which no longer will provide the artificial assistance -- those which have blown the record books apart.

And the good news is that Phelps will be back as good as ever. What we are seeing is Michael Phelps, in less than supreme physical condition (but still pretty darn impressive!), looking to the future. He is sticking to his principles, and allowing his reputation to be sullied only in superficial terms, to swim in suits that he and everyone else MUST wear in less than two months' time.

Phelps won't suffer from any psychological letdown with the clock running longer in 2010 than 2009. Not like a whole host of rivals. He's getting in first, doing exactly now what will be the norm in 2010.

When the swimming world returns to normality. When Michael Phelps will resume his rightful place as king of the pool.