Michael Phelps is the greatest swimmer ever born… and the 2008 Olympics haven’t even arrived. Tiger Woods can be beaten, Federer can as well (and even has a nemesis in Nadal), but Phelps is the metaphorical mile ahead of everybody. Watch him win 8 or 9 gold medals next year.

He won only 6 gold medals in the last Olympics, but salvaged his reputation with a mindblowing performance at the 2007 Melbourne world championships in March (keep a close eye on all the red lines in the video, and remember that nobody else in the world, all 100 billion human beings who have ever lived, had ever crossed the line he consistently swam two bodylengths in front of.)

The 2007 US National championships were held in Indianapolis early this month. This event is considered the warm up for the 2008 US trials for Beijing, and Michael Phelps came to the city with a full head of hair and an ugly French beard (which he thankfully shaved off a couple of days into the competition.) He was known to be on a light training schedule at the time: he supposedly was swimming only three times a week, and considering the average number of swims per week during peak training season is about ten, it gives you an idea of how important he considered this competition.

Phelps swam only the events he had no intention of swimming in the Olympics. In the 200 Breaststroke, he came in in a lowly third place… in the B Final. He then dived in for the 200 Backstroke and took it easy, to end up behind Ryan Lochte and the formerly unbeatable Aaron Peirsol. A gold in the 200m Freestyle with the second fastest time in history only meant he was over a second slower than his world record.

He then reeled off an almost-world record in the 200m Backstroke (an event he will not swim at the Olympics.) A quick dive in for the 100 Butterfly (the only ’strength’ event he couldn’t dominate Crocker over… until 2007 arrived), and he won it but without the American or world record. (Ian Crocker pulled off another disqualification in this event after that controversial early dive he pulled off early in the year. The story goes that in Melbourne, after Phelps whipped Crocker in Crocker’s pet event, the 100m Butterfly, Crocker replied by diving off the blocks a tad early (0.61s, to be precise) in the 4×100m Medley relay qualifiers, thus pulling off a DQ for Team USA and thus denying Phelps a record-breaking 8th gold medal at the world championships.)

The 100 backstroke was all Phelps magic, though. He never swims this event since he’s got better things to do, but decided to tread on Peirsol’s and Lochte’s feet for kicks. He whipped off his iPod, dived in, ended the 50m in second place, turned and… finished 0.03s off the world record, with enough energy left to glance at the electronic timing board and then scream in frustration about what might have been. Two days later, he decided to lead off the 4×100m Medley relay time trials for the Wolverines in another highly anticipated bid to break the world record in the last event of the championships, but in spite of timing under WR pace over 50m, he ended with a slow 53.17, almost 0.2s off Peirsol’s record. (Yes, the individual world record counts if set in the first leg of a relay.)

A few other fantastic American swimmers also have to be written about. Dara Torres, a 40 year old former 50m Freestyle world record holder, just came back from retirement (and childbirth) to easily dominate the 50m Freestyle and 100m Freestyle at the Indy championships: the shorter event with a new American record to boot. To put things in perspective, she was 17 when she first swam for the USA in the 1984 Olympics. There are whispers about her being “on the juice”, though…

Erik Vendt, Phelps’ Club Wolverine teammate, is another person to look out for: like Janet Evans, he is physically tiny but really pulls his weight in the long distance events. He used to concentrate on the 400 IM, but sensibly switched to the 1500 Freestyle after coming out of retirement because of the appearance of The Lochte. He dominated the 800m and 1500m Freestyle events over Larsen Jensen and Peter Vanderkaay at Indianapolis, and should be worth rooting for in 2008.

Of course, to every Federer there is a Nadal who would be the best in the world… but for the other guy. In this case, the guy’s name is Ryan Lochte. This man consistently clocks world records only to find that Phelps got there first, two seconds before he did. He is going to win 4 gold medals in Beijing: two relays and the two backstroke events as well as a ton of silver medals… and maybe, just maybe, might pull off a victory over Phelps in one of the IMs.

The 2007 US nationals can be viewed online, legally and for free, here. Timed Finals is also a great collaborative blog on swimming, similar to this one. There’s also quite a nice blog about Indian swimming here.