Phelps only gets better

Michael Phelps won two of the three events he swam Monday night at the Toyota Southern California Grand Prix at the Belmont Plaza Olympic pool in Long Beach.

More important to the man who aims to win eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympics is that he swam faster times than he did in this meet a year ago.

Phelps won the 100-yard butterfly in 45.40 seconds. Last year he swam it in 46.05. He won the 100-yard backstroke in 45.50 seconds and last year he swam it in 45.90. Phelps finished second to world champion Mark Gangloff in the 100-yard breaststroke in a time of 53.41 seconds, over a second better than his time last year of 54.67 seconds.

“Being able to come in and do three best times is satisfying,” Phelps said. “I honestly think I’m more relaxed than I was last year.”

Last year Phelps, 22, stamped himself as the best swimmer in the world when he set four individual world records and won seven gold medals at the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia. He came to Long Beach off an intense club training session in Colorado Springs, Colo., and with an attitude that this, as he says, is the biggest year of his life.

“It’s probably one of the last opportunities I’ll really ever have to swim a hefty event program,” Phelps said. “After this year it’s going to be harder and harder for my body to handle this program. I’ve got to make sure I’m in the best possible shape to possibly swim 18 times in eight days at both the [U.S. Olympics] trials and the Olympics.”

The altitude training camp also helped Phelps’ Club Wolverine teammate Kaitlin Sandeno, a 24-year-old from Lake Forest. Sandeno, who says she is “99.5% sure” she is retiring after this season, won four events in four days including the women’s 200-yard individual medley Monday night, and she finished third in two others.

She handily won the individual points award and was teary-eyed after finishing her last short-course event at a pool she considers home.

“It’s bittersweet,” Sandeno said.

Another veteran, 26-year-old Amanda Beard who has already been in three Olympics, finished fourth behind Tara Kirk (59.11), Jessica Hardy (1:00.68) and Keri Hehn (1:00.92) in the 100-yard breaststroke. Beard touched the wall in 1:01.38 and said afterward that while she “hated” finishing fourth she was fully committed to making a fourth Olympics.

Earning the most points among the men at this meet was 22-year-old Matt Grevers, who finished off his program by winning the 200-yard individual medley Monday in a meet-record 1:43.56. Grevers, who was leading Phelps going into the final 25 yards of the butterfly, said he had arrived at the meet in a bad frame of mind.

“I was saying, ‘What’s the deal? I’m training way harder than I ever have, putting in the effort and not getting any better,” Grevers said. “I was asking my teammates, ‘Why are you guys going so fast and I’m not? Then I basically had a great meet. I got the results I was looking for.”

Grevers, who is from Lake Forest, Ill., and who trains in Tucson, said he didn’t hold out much hope of beating Phelps at the end.

“That would be wishful thinking,” Grevers said. “I know that on the last turn he’s going to waste me. I took it out a little fast, hoping Michael wouldn’t catch up, but I wasn’t going to fool him.”

Phelps said he was disappointed in only one thing after he won five of the six races he finished. “I would have liked to get Mark there at the end in the breaststroke,” Phelps said.

Gangloff said it was a “point of pride” that he not lose to Phelps in his specialty. Freestyle and butterfly are Phelps’ signature strokes, but Gangloff says he doesn’t mind when the star shows up in his event.

“It makes me get better,” Gangloff said.

Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman, a noted perfectionist, also left the meet happy.

“Michael surpassed my expectations,” Bowman said. “I feel very good about this. He’s made vast improvements in the past two weeks.”

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diane.pucin@latimes.com