BALTIMORE — When Michael Phelps was at his lowest, unsure if he wanted to return to swimming, he sat down with a pen and a piece of paper.
“I wrote out the pros and cons of swimming,” he said, “and quitting.”
In the end, swimming won out. Phelps returned to what he does best.
Now, he’s finished serving a three-month suspension that was doled out by USA Swimming after a picture surfaced in a British tabloid showing him inhaling from a marijuana pipe.
Tuesday was the final day of his suspension. Phelps marked it like any other day: He woke up late and headed to the pool.
“I had no idea,” Phelps said.
Phelps admitted the fallout from the infamous photo made him think twice about whether he wanted to stay in the public eye.
“There were days I would just come and warm up and say, ‘I’m not feeling it.’ I would just go home,” he said. “If I wanted to swim slow, I would swim slow. If I didn’t want to come (to practice), I wouldn’t come. If I woke up and didn’t feel like going in and working out, I would stay in bed and watch TV.”
Phelps will return to competition next week at a meet in Charlotte, N.C. It will be his first time swimming competitively since winning eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.
“I’m happy to be back in the water and be back in semi-shape,” said Phelps, who has lost almost 20 pounds in the last two months.
