Phelps beats Lochte in Charlotte

AP

Michael Phelps competes in the men's 200-metre freestyle.

Charlotte, North Carolina – Michael Phelps easily beat Ryan Lochte in their last race Friday before the U.S. Olympic trials, yet that was still not good enough to win.

Ricky Berens beat them both in the 200-metre freestyle at the Charlotte Grand Prix, touching in a relatively slow time of 1 minute, 47.32 seconds. Phelps finished second in 1:48.01, while Lochte was back in sixth place at 1:49.70.

“We're all doing different training,” Phelps said. “That's how (Lochte) has always done it. I'm sure that's what he's going to do this year. He's somebody who's a very tough racer and, at the right time, he'll be there when it counts.”

Lochte, in fact, put himself at a disadvantage before the race even started by going with a brief instead of a jammer suit like the one worn by Phelps. Also, he is swimming a much more extensive program in Charlotte than his top rival, who has only one more event, the 200 butterfly.

Later in the evening, Lochte finished seventh in the grueling 400 individual medley. He's got several more events in Charlotte, then he will return home for training ahead of the Olympic trials in Omaha, which begin in late June.

“None of this is going to matter,” said Gregg Troy, Lochte's coach. “No one is going to care what happened in Charlotte in another month and a half or two months. So, we're pretty comfortable.”

Phelps is planning to swim at only one more meet before the Olympic trials. He'll be spending most of his time in the mountains of Colorado, fine-tuning his conditioning at altitude.

Berens certainly knows that both Phelps and Lochte will be going much faster when they get to Omaha. At last year's world championships, Lochte won the gold with a showing of 1:44.44, edging Phelps by 35-hundredths of a second.

Berens hasn't come close to those sort of times without benefit of the high-tech suits that have since been banned by Fina, the world governing body. The best he can hope for, it would seem, is to go fast enough at trials to earn a spot on the 4x200 freestyle relay.

“I have one of the hardest events in the country,” he conceded. “I've got Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps, who are the two fastest guys in the world and the toughest competition. As long as I'm on the relay with those two guys, I'll be glad to be on their team. As long as I'm part of that relay and winning gold for the U.S., I'm happy.”

Phelps hoped to get a powerful finishing kick off his last turn, but he had trouble judging the wall because of a bulkhead that hangs over the end of the pool. He mistimed his flip, didn't get the push he wanted and couldn't quite catch up to the leader.

“I wanted to nail that third wall. I knew that was going to be the difference in the race,” Phelps said. “He probably got me by a couple of tenths on that wall. With 15 or 20 metres to go, I kind of felt like I was reeling him in a little bit. I just kind of ran out of room. I didn't set myself up to run him down at the right spot. Hopefully, next time.” – Sapa-AP