Ever Busy, Phelps Gets Back to Main Thing

Doesn’t it seem as though Michael Phelps just got out of the pool at the Olympics in Athens?

He has barely had enough time to dry off, let alone spend any quality time at his usual haunts in suburban Baltimore, and here it is, time for another major international swimming competition.

Phelps, who won eight medals at the Olympics, six gold, will hit the water in the short-course world championships, which start Thursday at Indianapolis. His coach, Bob Bowman, said he is entered in five individual events, plus possible relays, but those plans could change, depending on his sore back.

“I haven’t really had much of an opportunity to swim short course in meters,” Phelps said Tuesday. “I’m just going to go in and swim as fast as I can, and hopefully they’ll be some good times.”

Adrenaline and his considerable ability will go a long way in combating his recent back problems, curtailed training and dizzying post-Athens schedule, a 15-city promotional American tour.

Phelps has had some treatment on the back in Los Angeles, and Bowman thought it was getting better by not being on the tour bus.

“We’re on American soil,” Phelps said. “I think that’s going to help.”

Without the likes of Australian stars Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett, the meet does not match the luster of, say, the long course world championships.

And Natalie Coughlin, winner of five Olympic medals, pulled out because of a stress fracture in her left foot. For Team Phelps, it does serve as a way to glean information.

“What it will do is give us an opportunity to know a little bit better where he is physically after all of this stuff,” Bowman said. “Just so we have an idea of what has gone on and where we can start from. It’s probably more of a starting point.”

Phelps was doing an admirable job of putting words together on another hectic day of appearances, working on little sleep. He appeared at Disneyland with Olympians Ian Crocker and Lenny Krayzelburg, and was later greeted by an excitable crowd, mostly of screaming pre-teen girls, at the AT&T; Wireless Store in Tustin.

There, he took his shirt off to reveal a torso painted blue, looking like an audition for the Blue Man Group. But this was for charity as Phelps made an imprint of his wingspan on a canvas.

The line into the AT&T; store for his autograph wound through the parking lot at the Market Place, and about 600 fans stood waiting to meet the Olympian, who has morphed into a teen icon.

“We could keep it going. It’s been like this everywhere we go,” his agent, Peter Carlisle of Octagon, said of the tour. “We’re a month after Athens, and we’ve got demand from China, Brazil, offers to take this over there.... It’s been great for the sport.”

Phelps is enjoying the wave. He still looked a bit sheepish and very much a kid when a girl yelled out before the body paint session, “.... And he’s hot!”

“It’s been quite an amazing ride,” Phelps said.