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Published: Saturday May 9, 2009 MYT 9:25:00 AM

Phelps returns, but with image still tarnished

BALTIMORE (AP) - Michael Phelps has served his penalty, learned who his real friends are and put up with plenty of ridicule over that infamous photo showing him inhaling from a marijuana pipe.

The swimmer who won eight gold medals at Beijing is ready to compete again, but there's still a lot of work to do after the longest layoff of his career.

The same could be said about his image outside the pool.

Will fans remember him as the lanky champion who left China with all that precious metal around his neck?

Or will they perceive him as a petulant party boy who showed again that he's incapable of handling post-Olympic fame?

"There's a picture on the Internet that's burned into people's minds of him with a bong in his mouth," said Gene Grabowski, a senior vice president with Washington-based Levick Strategic Communications, who works with high-profile clients in need of an image makeover.

"That photographic evidence will live forever on the Internet. As unfair as that may seem, human beings can't get over that image in their minds. He'll forever be associated with that."

Phelps is unlikely to ever be seen quite the way as he was in the giddy days after Beijing, where he eclipsed the most hallowed of Olympic records - Mark Spitz's seven golds at the 1972 Munich Games - and also became the most successful Olympian ever with 14 victories.

One little photo, apparently snapped with a cell phone after Phelps popped in on a college party in South Carolina three months after his Olympic triumph, sent his carefully scripted life into chaos.

He went into virtual seclusion for nearly a month. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to keep swimming.

Some days, he just stayed in bed instead of going to the pool to train.

"I just backed off and let him know I was there and I loved him," said Bob Bowman, Phelps' longtime coach.

"I wasn't really sure he should feel good for the first part of all that, know what I mean? He had to work through it. This was his thing."

Shortly after the photo was published in a London tabloid, USA Swimming handed Phelps a three-month suspension.

In all likelihood, it factored in his past indiscretion, a drunken-driving arrest shortly after he won six golds and two bronzes at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Phelps went into a shell, waiting nearly a month before deciding that he wanted to follow his plan all along, to compete through the 2012 London Games.

The first step in this last phase of his career begins next weekend, when he races in five events at a Grand Prix meet in Charlotte, North Carolina - his first competition in almost nine months.

"I've never had a break like I did after Beijing," Phelps said.

"I'm feeling good in the water. I'm swimming some decent times in practice. But I have no idea what to expect in a meet. I'm just going in with an open mind and see what happens."

He insists that his life away from the pool is much more settled.

"I think I'm more laid back than I ever have been," Phelps said during an interview with The Associated Press in Baltimore.

"I just seem to go about things easier. Maybe it's because of everything I've been through. Maybe it's just me getting older and more mature."

Indeed, Phelps seems to have a much better perspective on his latest troubles. He was only 19 at the time of his drunk driving arrest, having just moved away from home for the first time in his life.

He insisted that he would learn from his mistakes, but it seemed as though he was reading a script rather than speaking from the heart.

Sitting down with the AP for nearly an hour before a training session at Loyola College, Phelps talked openly about the problems he had dealing with fame and fortune.

"Olympic athletes have a lot of post-Olympic depression," he said.

"You go from such a high, from being on top of your game at the highest level of competition you can be at, then all of a sudden the next day, you're back to doing nothing. It's hard. It's something I've had trouble with the last two Olympics. We just don't know what to do with ourselves."

In some ways, Phelps said, he was just living out the childhood he never had.

"It was probably the first time I've ever really been able to be a kid. Ever," Phelps said.

"My friends were like, 'Do you want to go to Vegas?' Oh sure, I've never been to Vegas. 'Do you want to go to a playoff game in Miami for (his hometown Baltimore) Ravens?' I'm like, 'Sure, why not? I have nothing else to do."'

And, of course, he was persuaded to go out on the town when he visited the University of South Carolina back in November. That's one he would like to have back.

Still, one can't help but wonder if he's just another pampered, sheltered athlete who was snatched away from childhood too soon and now has trouble dealing with the real world.

Phelps has been swimming for 17 of his 23 years. He made his first Olympic team at age 15. He set his first world record not long after.

When asked this question, Bowman comes clean.

"I think it's part of it," the coach said.

"I try to go back in my head and think about what we could have done different. But we couldn't do anything different, not if he wanted to win eight gold medals."

After winning all that gold, Phelps left on a whirlwind of television appearances, book signings and sponsor obligations.

For an Olympic athlete, even one as spectacular as Phelps, the window for cashing in is relatively short, and exhausting.

"The minute after he won the last relay, immediately after we do drug testing, we go to the press center, do all this stuff - and he just kept going," Bowman said.

"He did that for four months. Every day, all day. He never had a chance to take a deep breath. I remember thinking, 'This poor kid, he's not even going to get a minute to relax.'

"Then, when he finally does get a chance to relax, he feels like he has to cram it all into a short period of time, because he's going to be right back into it. I think that contributed to the environment he was in down there (in South Carolina). It still doesn't excuse it."

While Phelps did lose one major sponsor - a deal that landed him on Kellogg's cereal boxes was allowed to expire - most of his financial backers stuck with him.

Of course, there's no way to gauge how much business he lost because potential clients didn't want him representing their products.

Grabowski, the image consultant, said Phelps continues to rate positively with most people, though there's a demographic that may be shut out to him, at least in the short term.

"The problems is not his image with adults," Grabowski said.

"Even though parents seem to generally like him and think he's a good guy, they may be reluctant to expose him to their children."

That could hurt Phelps' future earning power. But Peter Carlisle, the swimmer's agent, is confident his client will gradually regain the trust of potential sponsors, especially as that photo fades further into the past and there's more attention on what he does best - swimming.

Phelps plans to compete in three meets over the next two months, take part in the U.S. championships in July before heading for the world championships in Rome.

He will be trying out a new program, dropping several events that brought him gold at the last two Olympics for the chance to take on new challenges.

"His image changes all the time," Carlisle said.

"But certain accomplishments that he's had will always be the fundamental component to his image and how people think of and view Michael. With him, or any other athlete or celebrity, the image is something that changes and grows and develops over time. That remains to be seen. But I think Michael has got lot of stuff in the works that I think will be positive and have a positive effect on his image."

Phelps, who has already earned millions of dollars, doesn't seem too concerned about how he's viewed.

He just wants to return to swimming and restore some normalcy to his hectic life. "I remember the first thing I said to Peter when I decided I was coming back," he said.

"If I lose an endorsement deal, that's OK. I'm not coming back for another four years to make a bunch of money. I'm coming back here to swim because that's what I want to do. That's the bottom line. If I was in sports for the money, I probably would have chosen a different sport."

Phelps' image is not out of the fire yet.

"Using the analogy of a swim meet, he's come on very strong but the race still isn't over," Grabowski said.

"He's in the last 50 meters of the race. He has to stay clean. He has to be careful what he says. He still has to be accessible. "He has to finish smoothly and not make a mistake."

Phelps said he's up to this - and any other - challenge.

"I want to be the best I can be," he said. "I want to be the best ever." - AP


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