Mr. Phelps knows his assignment

Michael Phelps has a fresh, purple scar on his right wrist and purposeful sincerity about his intentions to, as he says, “not mess up anymore.”

Phelps, 22, who stamped himself as perhaps the greatest swimmer ever last summer when he won seven gold medals at the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, has entered nine events this weekend at the Toyota Southern California Grand Prix at the Belmont Plaza Olympic pool in Long Beach.

After his triumphant performance in Melbourne and with intentions of swimming as many as eight events at this summer’s Olympics in Beijing, Phelps had a major wake-up call in October. He fell while getting out of his car and broke his right wrist. The injury required surgery, kept him out of the pool for two weeks and kept him from maximum efficiency in workouts until the past two weeks.

Training partner Kaitlin Sandeno said, “I think that whole thing really kind of put him in check. He said, ‘I can’t do this. I need to be careful, the Olympics are five months away.’ Michael never does cardio and suddenly he was upstairs doing cardio and really determined. When the accident happened you could tell he’s really driven now.”

Phelps was on the preliminary start list in nine events here -- the 100-yard freestyle, the 200-yard backstroke and the 500-yard freestyle today; the 200-yard breaststroke, the 50-yard freestyle and 400-yard individual medley Sunday; and the 100-yard butterfly, 100-yard backstroke and 100-yard breaststroke Monday.

He might swim only seven. When Phelps was listing his schedule for the next three days, he ticked off the 100 and 500 freestyles today, the 400 individual medley Sunday and, as he said, the triple on Monday of the 100 butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke.

Phelps, Sandeno and their Club Wolverine teammates have just finished an intense training camp in Colorado Springs. The swimmers arrived Dec. 26 and on Dec. 27 they got their schedule from coach Bob Bowman. “It was pretty brutal,” Phelps said. “Kaitlin and I were sitting next to each other, counting down the page and going, ‘Oh my gosh, 2 1/2 weeks, 72 workouts?’ ”

Phelps won six gold medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and followed that with his world championship performance last year when he set five world records besides winning the seven golds.

His slip and fall in October made Phelps think about what he is aiming for this year.

The injury required surgery to insert a pin and an enforced break from swimming that made him, he said, grow up.

“It made me start rethinking and refocusing,” Phelps said. “This is the biggest year of my life, a big part of my career.

“This was a huge wake-up call. If it wasn’t, I don’t know what it will take. I’ve completely changed my mentality. I have to take everything so carefully now. If I could live in a bubble I would so I couldn’t get in trouble, couldn’t get hurt, just eat and swim and sleep.”

Phelps said he has no goals here this weekend other than looking at the clock, checking his times. “Hopefully it’s somewhere in the ballpark of where I was last year at this time,” Phelps said.

Erik Vendt, a two-time Olympian and a former USC swimmer, set an American record while winning the 1,000-yard freestyle Friday night. Vendt, 27, who also represents Club Wolverine and is a former USC student, finished in 8 minutes 36.49 seconds. The old record of 8:42.64 was set last March by Robert Margalis. Olympic silver medalist Larsen Jensen of Bakersfield finished second in 8:58.64 and Zane Grothe of Boulder City, Nev., was third.

Sandeno, 24, from Lake Forest, won the women’s 1,000 freestyle in 9:30.62, well ahead of Mary Descenza, who finished in 9:37.52. Katie Carroll, who recently joined Club Wolverine after graduating from Notre Dame, finished third in 9:48.42. Until Carroll’s recent arrival, Sandeno had been the only elite woman training with Bowman at Club Wolverine since she graduated with her history degree from USC in 2006.

--

diane.pucin@latimes.com

--

Swimming

* What: Toyota Southern California Grand Prix of Swimming.

* Where: Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool, 400 Olympic Plaza, Long Beach.

* When: Today through Monday. Preliminary heats 9 a.m. Finals 5 p.m. today and Sunday; 4 p.m. Monday.