Monday, Jan. 21, 2008

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) Michael Phelps showed up at his first meet of the Olympic year looking like a scraggly surf bum — long plaid shorts, Detroit Tigers cap worn to the side, unkempt curly hair and Fu Manchu facial hair.

Then he hit the pool.

That's when the six-time Olympic gold medalist became instantly recognizable.

Fresh off three weeks of grueling altitude training in Colorado, Phelps is entered in nine events over three days starting Saturday at the Southern California Grand Prix.

"At the end of the training camp, I started feeling good again," he said. "Competition is really what I need and what I need to see is where I am, where my times are and what I need to improve on."

Phelps' ultimate goal is to break swimming legend Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in August. Phelps just missed in 2004, winning six in Athens.

"It's the biggest year of my life," he said. "I have pretty hefty goals this year and it's going to take a lot to get there."

What he does over the next eight months will go a long way in determining how he fares in Beijing. That knowledge has weighed heavily on Phelps' mind since breaking a bone in his right wrist in October.

He tripped and fell while getting into a car in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he trains. The mishap cost him nearly two weeks in the water, the longest he has been confined to dry land in years.

"It changed my mentality. I have to take everything so carefully now. I'm more excited now than I was before that happened," he said. "I plan on not screwing around anymore until after the Olympics."

The thin red scar on his wrist is a constant reminder.

Phelps woke up the next day with swelling that resembled a golf ball. He called his trainer and went to the hospital, leaving the dirty work of informing coach Bob Bowman to the trainer.

"I wasn't at the other end of that phone call," Phelps said, smiling.

At the hospital, eager employees asked Phelps for his autograph, not realizing the right-hander was in no shape to sign anything. So they asked for photos. Again, Phelps looked at them helplessly while hooked up to IV lines.

The injury also cost Phelps time on his beloved video games. "I got right back on Halo as soon as I got my cast off," he said.

In the pool, recovery wasn't as quick.

"It took a while for me to get my motion back in my wrist," he said. "If I could live in a bubble right now I probably would, so I couldn't get hurt, I couldn't get in trouble, I couldn't do anything but swim, eat and sleep."

That's pretty much all Phelps and his Club Wolverine teammates did in Colorado, enduring 70 workouts over 22 days under Bowman, a notorious taskmaster. They were in the pool at 6 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 5 p.m., with cardio workouts and weightlifting in between.

"Over the last three weeks, I came back around to my old self and doing some of things in workout that I used to do," Phelps said. "It's starting to feel good."

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) Don Wittman, the CBC announcer who called some of Canada's most significant sporting events, died of cancer Saturday. He was 71.

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