CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michael Phelps wanted to bring more attention to swimming.
He’s sure doing that.
Phelps’ accomplishments in the pool — and shaky judgment on land — has brought plenty of notoriety to what has always been a once-every-four-years sport.
On Thursday, he caught an early-morning flight to Charlotte for his first meet since winning a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics. He’ll be competing in front of capacity crowds and media from as far away as Japan, France and Britain — hardly the norm for a Grand Prix meet in a non-Olympic year.
“With the positive and the negative things, there’s a lot more attention being brought to the sport,” Phelps said. “That’s something this sport needs and something it deserves.”
Of course, he would’ve preferred the focus remain on his accomplishments in Beijing, not what he did during a party in South Carolina three months after the Olympics.
That’s where someone took that infamous photo of Phelps inhaling from a marijuana pipe, a picture that wound up on the front page of a British tabloid and led USA Swimming to give him a three-month suspension.
Phelps is eager to get the focus back on his swimming, and the Charlotte Ultraswim will be his first chance to begin developing a new program for the London Olympics.
Phelps will compete in five events — the 200-meter freestyle and 100 butterfly today, the 50 freestyle and 100 backstroke Saturday and the 100 freestyle Sunday — mostly using a new straight-arm sprinter’s stroke as he leaves behind his signature 400-meter distance.
“I have no idea how I’ll do,” he said. “I’ll just hop in the water and see what happens.”
