Phelps drops 200 free at Olympic trials; will swim 4 events

Indeed, the 22-year-old has grown from collecting Phelps’s autographs and trading them for T-shirts to Phelps’s whipping boy to, finally, the all-time great’s peer.

A trio of Duke men competed in the 100 breaststroke preliminaries, including rising sophomore Judd Howard, who improved upon his seeding in the event by over 50 spots.

The trials began on Sunday at CenturyLink Center here in Omaha.

What he has left is a mixture of numbers and myths for Kalisz to chase.

Michael Phelps, who dropped the 400 IM in which he still owns the world record, clearly felt no remorse about giving up what is considered swimming’s toughest test, smiling as he arrived on the pool deck to watch his old foe Lochte and training partner Kalisz battle.

Kalisz finished first with a time of 4:09.54.

“MECA parking will primarily be utilized for College World Series fans, so we will have very limited parking for swim fans Monday night, Tuesday night, and possibly Wednesday night”, said Andersen.

Phelps found his way to Kalisz after the race and conveyed his pride.

Former UCLA and Claremont butterflier Noelle Tarazona, 23, finished 17 with a 59.88, just one one-hundredth of a second away from tying for the 16 and final berth in the semifinals.

“It’s a little bit surprising that the first and last of the seeded heats were both sub-1s, which is awesome going into tonight”, she said.

That, though, is the dynamic. But Michael kind of keeps it going.

Lochte still has a window of qualifying for a fourth Olympics in one of the four events he will participate in.

It’s a motivation pushing him to one day compete.

Stanford-based Maya DiRado qualified for her first Olympic team by capturing the women’s 400 IM in 4:33.73, about three seconds ahead of runner-up Elizabeth Beisel (4:36.81). But over the past four years, Phelps and Bowman have pushed him – and unleashed an enormous improvement. Aside from these events, the 30-year-old swimmer is also busy cheering for Kalisz and Litherland.

“I just had to get those first-swim jitters out of the way”, Ledecky said. “I think once I saw the pushback, I knew he would understand it, and I knew he was getting what was going on”.

With Phelps motioning the breaststroke arm-technique to NBC’s Rowdy Gaines in the stands, Kalisz took the lead for good after 100 meters of breaststroke.

Beardsley, who grew up in the New York City area, qualified first in his specialty, the 200 butterfly, at the 1980 U.S. Olympic trials, but never made it to the Moscow Games because of the U.S.-led boycott. Lochte won the gold medal in it in 2012, but training for that race at an advanced swimming age is like being an National Football League running back in your 30s – the wear and tear is considerable.

The swimming trials continue all week, with the Rio Olympics running from August 5-21.

The Mission Viejo Nadadores’ standout had her fingernails painted – metallic gold this time – as she followed her ritual for big competitions. “Today, we went past a park and it was packed with people watching the Trials on a huge video screen”. The injury quickly cast a cloud over his bid to make a fourth straight USA team. “That was just a very emotional moment”. He was right; Kalisz passed him during that stroke.