Olympic hopefuls and legends descended on Dallas for the 2012 London Olympics media summit last weekend to answer questions and have their photographs taken. The Olympic trials are June 25 to July 2 in Omaha, Neb., but until then enjoy this collection of photographs of U.S. athletes.

Michael Phelps was a main attraction at the United States Olympic Committee event drawing a full house with reporters eager to know everything from what he plans on swimming at the London Olympics to whether he's climbed the famed "Incline," a training trail at the base of the mountains near Colorado Springs, Colo.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michael Phelps easily beat Ryan Lochte in their last race before the U.S. Olympic trials. Don’t read too much into the results. Heck, Phelps didn’t win either.

Ricky Berens beat them both to the wall in the 200-meter freestyle at the Charlotte Grand Prix on Friday night, touching in a relatively slow time of 1 minute, 47.32 seconds. Phelps finished second in 1:48.01, while Lochte was far 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, the Floridian is swimming a much more extensive program in Charlotte than his top rival, who has only one more event, the 200 butterfly, before he heads to the U.S. Olympic Committee media summit in Dallas.

Later in the evening, Lochte finished seventh in the grueling 400 individual medley, which was won by two-time Olympian Peter Vanderkaay. Lochte has a few more events in Charlotte before he shuts it down on Sunday, heading back to the sunshine state to get in some serious training before the 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 rubberized 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 800 free 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 on their team. As long as I’m part of that relay and winning gold for the U.S., I’m happy."

All eyes were on Phelps and Lochte as they headed to the blocks, with nearly everyone in the overflow crowd snapping pictures of them with cellphones and tablets. But Berens, a native of Charlotte, had plenty of supporters too. His plan was to get off to a quick start and try to hold on. It worked out just fine.

Berens was about a half-body length ahead of Phelps at the first turn and never gave up the advantage. 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 meters 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."

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Record breaking Olympian Michael Phelps took some time to towel off and call in to “On Air with Ryan Seacrest” to bust a popular myth surrounding his diet and most importantly share his Olympic playlist with us.
15 Mouth-Watering Male Athletes To Watch At the Olympics

Does Michael Really Eat 12,000 Calories A Day?
“I never ate that much. It’s all a myth. I’ve never eaten that many calories. I wish! It’s just too much though. It would be impossible.”

What’s On Your iPod Right Now?
“I’ve started listening to some Afrojack or Avicii or Skrillex. Guys like that give me more of an upbeat tune to get me even more fired up. Those are some new things I’ve started doing.”
15 Hottest Female Athletes To Watch At the Olympics

What Is Michael’s Morning Routine?
“I actually listen to you guys in the morning too sometimes. You guys are up whenever I’m going to the pool. I always hear Ryan on the radio whenever I’m scrolling through my stations. It actually helps me get up. I’m the worst morning person in the world. So being able to listen to some of the jokes you guys make definitely helps me get up in the morning.” But what does the speedster swimming meditate on while competing? Phelps confesses: “When I’m racing I don’t think about anything, but when I’m working out…yeah…it’s kind of whatever I hear right before I get out of the car. It’s kind of on repeat.”

Mother’s Day Gift Ideas?
“I don’t know. There’s a couple different things. I think she got a car one year. She got some jewelry one year. I’m not really sure, she doesn’t really like to express what she likes so I have to go out and just get something. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do for her this year, but I guess I’m running out of time since it’s only a couple of days away.”

How Does London Olympic Training Compare To Beijing Training?
“I’m a lot more relaxed than I was going into Beijing, and I think now we’re trying to fine-tune some of the small things that are going to end up making a big difference. Before we were just trying to do so much. Trying to work on a lot of volume in training, but now it’s focusing on some of the small things. With the older I get not being able to recover as fast as I once did so we’re trying to pay a lot of attention to all the tiny things.”

Michael Phelps has joined Visa as they search for the best global cheer! Michael explains, “The best cheers that the fans post on their Facebook page will have an opportunity to appear in an ad for the Olympics. It’s going to be pretty exciting and the fans are very exciting for us athletes, and being able to hear how loud they get, and excited they are…definitely could help you win by 1/100th of second.” Join Visa here.

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U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps says he'll make one more push in the pool at the Olympics in London this summer, but after that he's hanging up his Speedo.

Phelps told Anderson Cooper in an interview on "60 Minutes" on Sunday that while it took him quite some time to get back into training for London, he's ready to go for the gold again. If he can get three medals during the Summer Olympics he will be able to retire as the athlete with the most Olympic career medals.

Debbie Phelps, Michael's mother, still likes the idea of him going to Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics, in part because she wants to travel there. His consolation for her: "We'll go watch.""Once I retire, I'm retiring," he said on "60 Minutes." "I'm done."

His coach, Bob Bowman, said he wasn't sure Phelps would even get to the Olympics. After a series of paparazzi photos showed the Olympic golden boy partying and Phelps slacked on practicing, everything was up in the air.

"I thought it was a 50-50," Bowman said. "I really didn't have a feel for whether he would come back or not come back."In the fall of 2009, Bowman said, Phelps probably missed six weeks of practice. Phelps said he took a trip to Vegas, lounged around the house, played video games and did anything to distract himself from the pool.

"It was hard, because I didn't know if the passion or the fire was still inside of me," Phelps told Cooper. "And it took awhile for me to actually realize it myself. Bob couldn't tell me, my mom couldn't tell me. They couldn't help me find it."


But he's found it, he says, and is training harder than ever. Phelps talked about one of the interesting ways he's preparing for the Olympics to step up his endurance: sleeping in a chamber that simulates altitudes of 8,000 or 9,000 feet.

"It's just like a giant box," Phelps said. "So, it's like the boy in the bubble."Bowman said despite Phelps' slow start to getting back into full training mode, he believes the icon of U.S. swimming can still nab several medals. The question is, how many?

"I don't know," Bowman said. "That's up to him."Phelps has no doubt he will contend and put on the best show he can during the Olympics across the pond. "I kind of feel like my old self again," he said. "I'm swimming times like I used to. I'm swimming races how I used to."

But he may be even more excited about his life after the Olympics. "I've been able to go to all these amazing cities in my travels and I haven't been able to see them at all," he said. "I see the hotel and I see the pool. That's it. And (after the Olympics) I'm just going to go and do whatever I want to do."

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Michael Phelps says he won't be tempted to dive back into competitive swimming once he retires from the sport. The 26-year-old has said the London Games will be his last Olympics. He won a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Games, giving him 16 total Olympic medals in his career.

In a taped interview with "60 Minutes" that aired on Sunday, the topic of sticking around for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro resurfaced. Debbie Phelps said she'd like to watch her son compete when the Games are hosted in Brazil for the first time. "C'mon Michael just a 50 freestyle," she said with a smile in the interview. " I've never been there before."

But Phelps reiterated that he'll be done after the July 27-Aug. 12 Summer Games in London. "We'll go watch," he said when told that him mom might want to see him compete in Rio. "Once I retire, I'm retiring. I'm done."

He's not sure what happened to one of the eight Olympic medals he won in 2004. "When we were traveling, someone was holding onto it," he said. He keeps the 2008 gold medals wrapped in an old T-shirt tucked inside a small case.

He met former Soviet Union gymnast Larysa Latynina, who holds the record with 18 medals, at a photo shoot . She told him in Russian she thinks he'll break her record.

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In the four years since he made history at the Beijing Olympics,Michael Phelps concedes losing his focus. But with the London Games looming, the Baltimore swimmer told "60 Minutes" in an interview that will air Sunday that he has gone all-out recently and says he is now approaching the shape he was in before Beijing, where he won an unprecedented eight gold medals. His coach, Bob Bowman, predicts Phelps will again win multiple gold medals for the United States this summer.

"Oh, for sure," said Bowman, when asked by "60 Minutes" whether his swimmer can win multiple gold medals. But how many? "I don't know, that's up to him."Phelps told the program he's physically almost where he was before Beijing.

"I kind of feel like my old self again. I'm swimming times like I used to. I'm swimming races like I used to. So everything is coming back to me, what it was, I guess, before '08," he said. Just a year ago, Bowman said, he was "very worried at that point ... that we had so far to come, he couldn't get back."

Phelps, flush with millions of dollars in endorsement money and perhaps already the best Olympic athlete ever, had to get his head back in the game. He was having trouble getting out of bed. "It was hard because I didn't know if the passion or the fire was still inside of me and it took a while for me to actually realize it myself," he said. "Bob couldn't tell me, my mom couldn't tell me."

Nowadays he's back in the pool every day and going heavy on weight training and just to be sure, he has added a new training tool: the altitude chamber. The device encloses his bed and provides thin air with the same oxygen content as the air at 8,500 to 9,000 feet. It is expected to improve his endurance. "It's something that is helping. I am 26 and I don't recover as fast as I have in the past," Phelps said.

For the new, focused Phelps, each morning is another step toward London and he no longer has trouble getting out of bed. "No. Because one, we're so close. And two, because I am actually enjoying it. I'm swimming well again."

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When Dan Rupp’s phone rang at around 10 a.m. a couple of Mondays ago he got nervous. He answered it and started to shake in front of his second period math students at Trinity High School. The caller asked if he interrupted his class. He did, but Rupp wasn’t about to put Michael Phelps on hold. Rupp talked to the famous swimmer for a few seconds before Phelps handed the phone off. Rupp heard a more familiar voice this time, his wife Heidi. She sat across from Phelps in Baltimore having lunch with the Olympic gold medalist. Heidi’s youngest son Nathan was there, too.

All three Rupps got to chat with their hero that day because of 100 words. Heidi Rupp is a teacher at Cox Bar Elementary School. Her students use the Internet to find writing prompts. In February, Heidi noticed an essay contest on Michael Phelps' Facebook page. In 100 words she had to explain why she wanted to meet Phelps. She used her 100 words well. She won. Her three-day trip included airfare, a hotel room, transportation, food and some spending cash. "It was the trip of a lifetime," she said.

Heidi was one of three winners out of thousands of entries. The essay contest, sponsored by Puresport, an energy drink created at the University of Texas to help swimmers perform and heal better after competition, paid for it all.

Corby McWilliams is the chief financial officer at Puresport. He said that the small company has sponsored Phelps since 2008. McWilliams met Heidi and Nathan in Baltimore on Monday after the two had a long late-night flight.

"They were very deserving winners of the contest," he said. Heidi is a life-long swimmer. She competed in high school and got a full ride scholarship to San Diego State in 1994. She started to compete in NCAA meets in the spring of 1995, swimming the 50- and 100-meter backstroke and freestyle. She had aspirations to compete in the Olympics, but tore her rotator cuff her junior year and had to put her swimming ambitions on hold.

While at San Diego State, Heidi met Dan, a competitive long distance swimmer and water polo player. Together they have three boys, Nathan 5, Kenny 7, and Scotty 8. All three kids are avid swimmers.
"If we don’t smell like chlorine," Heidi said, "we feel sad."

Another person who often smells like chlorine is Michael Phelps. In an Olympic year, he swims about 35 miles a week. Heidi and Dan followed Phelps' career long before the 2008 Beijing Olympics when Phelps secured eight gold medals and became an instant celebrity.

Heidi said she is drawn to Phelps not only because of his swimming ability, but his charity work too.
After the Beijing Olympics Phelps used a million dollar bonus check from Speedo to start the Michael Phelps Foundation. The focus of the nonprofit organization is to urge people to be healthy and active through the sport of swimming. Last year he became the global ambassador for the Special Olympics.
"It’s rare that an athlete of his caliber takes the time to encourage special needs kids," she said. That’s an issue Heidi is familiar with. Her son Nathan has a mitochondrial disorder and has type 1 diabetes. His illness causes the cells in his body to stop reproducing, weakening his muscles over time. Despite his health issues, Nathan can do at his age what Michael Phelps couldn’t.

He can swim. After lunch, the contest winners went downstairs in the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center in Baltimore to the pool area. It is a big complex with four pools, two inside and two out. The inside pools stretch along a long bank of windows for 50 yards with a car width of walking space on each side. From there, Heidi watched Nathan and Phelps swim together. "It was so fun to see," she said. The two traveled the length of the pool. Nathan did a backstroke and Phelps swam beside him. Along the way, they goofed around and splashed in the water. "Michael is like a big kid himself," Heidi said.

But even big kids get serious. Although Heidi’s swimming career ended in college, she can now say that she has raced an Olympics gold medalist and didn’t do too bad. After Phelps swam with Nathan, McWilliams said that Nathan turned to Heidi and said, "Mama, I want you to race Michael." That’s all it took. McWilliams said that all three contest winners raced Phelps. Heidi swam the freestyle, her stroke of choice. Phelps did the butterfly.

They all got set on the blocks and Phelps' sister started the race. "Ready, set, go," she said. Phelps took an immediate lead. McWilliams said that Heidi is a good swimmer, but was no match for the Olympian.
Heidi agrees. "He was sandbagging," she said. It means that he held back. He dove deeper than he needed to. He went slower than he could. But they raced. And she swam hard. Even though Phelps won, "he didn’t humiliate me," she said. "It was fun."

For Heidi, that’s what swimming is all about. When the Rupps moved to Weaverville seven years ago, Heidi got involved with the Weaverville community pool. She started to coach the Weaverville Waves that year. Her first year, she coached 25 kids, preparing them for competition. That number jumped to 90 the next year.

She explained why she loves competitive swimming. It doesn’t matter if you are a 5-year-old just starting out, or you are competing in the Olympics, the rule book is the same. "Even young children are expected to perform the same strokes that Olympians do," Heidi said. The Weaverville Waves are gearing up for their swim season. Swimming starts on May 1. Heidi won’t be coaching this year. She will be spending more time with Nathan. But she isn’t out of the pool altogether. She will swim laps and her two oldest boys will be on the swim team.

Her husband Dan will be at the pool, too. Dan once played water polo in front of a crowd of 100,000 people in Taiwan. Today he swims to unwind. As he reaches hand over hand, through the thick quiet of the water, emerging only for a gulp of air, he feels at peace. As the Rupps swim this summer, Phelps will swim, too. When the Olympics air this fall, they will all watch their hero race for the gold again.

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St. Louis, MO (KSDK) - He's already won more individual Olympic gold medals than anyone in history, but swimming super star Michael Phelps isn't satisfied.  NewsChannel 5's Casey Nolen recently sat down with Phelps, as he looks to London, trying to capture what he says he couldn't in his last Olympics. Watch Casey Nolen's report in the video player above. The Olympics begin July 27th in London, broadcast right here on NewsChannel 5 and on the networks of NBC.

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With the Olympics just 100 days away, here are nine storylines to watch for both before and during the London Games that begin on July 27:

HOW FAST CAN A MAN GO?
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, sprinting superman Usain Bolt actually pulled up slightly before the finish line while winning the 100 meters in world record time by a margin that felt like 200 meters. Then he bested Michael Johnson's seemingly untouchable world record in the 200 meters. A year later, he lowered the times in the two sprint races to 9.58 seconds and 19.19 seconds at the world championships in Berlin. Those times seemed out of reach for the near future until Bolt started reaching for them. Now, with countryman Yohan Blake, among others, there to push him, one can only guess at how fast the fastest human might be able to run under the glare of another Olympic spotlight.

WHO WILL MAKE THE FAB FIVE?
Yes, it's no longer the Magnificent Seven. Only five gymnasts will make up each artistic gymnastics team this year, down one gymnast from some years and two from others. Right now, it seems that all-arounder athletes Jordyn Wieber and Aly Raisman will most likely take two of the spots on the U.S. women's team, with world champion vaulter McKayla Maroney and newcomer Gabby Douglas emerging as strong candidates.

However, that leaves only a precious few spots for veterans Alicia Sacramone, Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson, Rebecca Bross, Bridget Sloan and Chellsie Memmel, who have all been said to be making comebacks for the 2012 Olympic team. To hear it from national coordinator Marta Karolyi, it's no guarantee that any of those veterans will be on the team. The U.S. women will be favored to win team gold in London, but who will make the final five after the U.S. trials in San Jose this summer, and which ones will capture individual glory at the Games?

TO RULE THE POOL
Watching Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte is a bit like watching Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali; these are two warriors who magnify their performances in the pool by pushing the other to the heights of their sport. However, this will likely be the last time we get to see them go head to head in an Olympic year, with Phelps questioning his desire to keep swimming after the 2012 Olympics. Though it's a safe bet that the pair will lock horns in the 200 free and 200 IM, Phelps recently raised the possibility that he would again try to swim the 400 IM, an event in which he holds the world record. Even better, the swim giants will go head to head at the Olympic trials in Omaha, Neb., early this summer and probably again at the Olympics in London. Don't expect either to duplicate Phelps' feat of eight golds in Beijing, but prepare for some high drama.

Counting down the top 100 U.S. Summer Olympics moments

FELIX THE CAT
Allyson Felix has been one of the finest sprinters of her generation, but has yet to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event. Call it an embarrassment of riches, in part because of her immense talent and range, you can make the case she has spread herself too thin in the past. Felix tried to double in the 200 and 400 meters at the world championships in Daegu, South Korea last summer and may have taken a little away from each race by racing in the other. Even when she has only qualified or attempted to qualify for one race, the training time she has put into figuring out which one to run may have cost her.
Felix won three world gold medals and two Olympic silvers in the 200 meters, and has an Olympic gold in the 4x400-meter relay from Beijing. In her prime at 26, she must answer two questions: will she choose one race over the other as opposed to doubling again and will she stand alone atop an Olympic podium at last?

GRAPPLE WITH THIS
With the wrestling Olympic Trials in Iowa City on April 21, the team that performed poorly at the most recent world championships will form anew for another shot at the world stage. Who will be there and who will go home? For starters, there are some high-profile names trying to make comebacks. Rulon Gardner would be a big winner if he is able to beat his own hunger by losing about 200 pounds in time for Olympic Trials. The 2000 Olympic champ, who beat the unbeatable Russian Alexander Karelin, is now trying to beat his own hunger to weigh in under the Olympic Trials limit of 264.5 pounds. If he does that he must still dethrone Dremiel Byers, a former world champ like Gardner, who could be on an Olympic podium. Gardner suffered a Grade II tear of his right hamstring earlier this month, but says he will be back and ready to go in Iowa City. Other big names Cael Sanderson and Kurt Angle, who had announced plans for comebacks, have withdrawn from the trials. Also, keep a lookout for Jordan Burroughs and Clarissa Chun, who could make an impact in London.

GETTING A KICK OUT OF YOU
As Olympic families go, it's hard to match what the Lopezes, the first family of taekwondo, have done in their sport. Steven Lopez has won two Olympic golds and a bronze. Younger brother Mark won an Olympic silver in 2008, and their youngest sister, Diana, took home a bronze in 2008. All three siblings, who are coached by oldest brother, Jean, won world titles together in 2005. This spring, Steven and Diana qualified for another Olympic team, while Mark fell short in the final match of the Olympic trials. With five world titles under his black belt, Steven is arguably the greatest competitor in the history of the sport. Will he and/or Diana be able to add to the first family's medal haul in London?

NEW SWIM QUEEN?
By the time the Olympics start, Missy "The Missile" Franklin will be 17 years old, and may well be ready to turn the Olympics on its ear. At the world championships in Shanghai last summer, Franklin won five medals, including three golds, and proved her stroke versatility by takings medals in both freestyle and backstroke events. At 6'1½", Franklin isn't finished growing or winning. Team USA should consider itself lucky to have the 6'1½" Franklin on its side -- Franklin's parents are Canadian, and their phenom daughter has dual citizenship. The upcoming Trials won't be her first; she qualified for 2008 Olympic Trials as a 13-year-old. With multiple Olympics likely in her future, is Franklin ready to put her stamp on the Games?

McCUTCHEON's MAGIC TOUCH
Nobody fit the triumph-over-adversity narrative in Beijing better than Hugh McCutcheon, the head coach of the U.S. men's volleyball team in 2008. A day after the opening ceremonies, while McCutcheon's family was touring China's capital city, a deranged man attacked members of the coach's family, killing his father-in-law Todd Bachman in the attack. After McCutcheon missed several matches to tend to family matters, he returned to lead the team to a gold medal it was not expected to win. This year, McCutcheon returns to the Olympics to coach the U.S. women's team that has never won gold at a world championship or Olympic Games, despite several strong showings. Can this be a first?

FOUR PLAY
It may be time for the names of Al Oerter and Carl Lewis to make some room for company. The Olympic legends won individual gold medals in the same event at four straight Olympics: Oerter in the discus and Lewis in the long jump. (No, British rower Steven Redgrave, a five-time champ, isn't included because he had partners in his boats.) In London, equestrian Anky van Grunsven of the Netherlands, the three-time defending champion in dressage, and Italian fencer Valentina Vezzali, the three-time gold medalist in individual foil, will have a chance to join them. Vezzali is also fencing for gold in her fifth straight Olympics, having won gold in team foil in 1996. Vezzali won another world title in Catania last year and will be 38 in London.

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Budapest: As Hungarian swimmer Laszlo Cseh trains in four-hour, early-morning sessions, his mind is on the man who could once again spoil his Olympic dream: Michael Phelps.

The American won a record eight gold medals in Beijing, five in individual events. Cseh placed second in three of those five races, the medleys and the 200m butterfly.

"I gave the maximum in Beijing," Cseh said, goggle marks ringing his eyes, after he had emerged from the water. "I had perfect races but nobody could beat Michael Phelps in Beijing. Come close, yes; beat, no."

Once again, in London, Cseh is likely to square up against Phelps in the same three events. Phelps has stopped him in every major tournament they have raced together.

Cseh won his only world championship gold in an event Phelps decided to skip in 2005. When Phelps skipped more events, another American, Ryan Lochte was there to claim the crown, leaving Cseh in second or third place again.

For a racer who has won medals at every tournament he has entered in the last decade, this runner-up streak should be frustrating, but Cseh says he is not unhappy. His time might just come now.


"I think this is the Olympics I have the greatest chance to be the best, to beat everyone," he said. "Phelps and Lochte are great swimmers. Beating them is a huge deal, which requires huge effort."

The Hungarian`s huge effort involves waking up at five a.m., spending time in the gym from 5.45 to 7.30, swimming from 7.30 to 9.30. He swims again from 4 to 6 in the afternoon, repeating the programme four days a week. On two other days, he has a longer combination of gym and swimming. Sundays, he has off.

"I have done this longer than I can remember," Cseh said. "When I step on that starting block in London I want to explode with power so no distance exhausts me and no rival scares me."

Cseh is no stranger to tough challenges as an athlete. At the age of 10, already a promising swimmer, he was diagnosed with acute allergy-induced asthma that had him gasping for air many nights. With medication and exercise he suppressed the condition.

He was 14 when he was invited to a training camp with the adult national team. He trained with the last of a great generation of Hungarian swimmers who won armloads of Olympic medals in the 1980s and 1990s.

The training regime was so intense that the teenage Cseh was often reduced to tears by nightfall. He was helped by double Olympic silver medallist Karoly Guttler, his roommate at the camp.

"I was 14, he was over 30, already a father," Cseh said. "In camp you can really grow isolated and blame everyone, including the coach. An older guy can help a lot by saying: `Look, Coach is trying to make you better, not to torture you for pleasure`."

Guttler said the young Cseh looked up to his older team mates, copying their training methods as he tried to emulate their results.

"He saw the medals, and he saw the kind of effort that went into them, what work ethic we adopted to get there," Guttler said. "I had a reputation for being calm and balanced under pressure and that`s why they asked me to share a room with him."

For the next four years the two bunked together the world over, killing time during a race in Athens, and killing large cockroaches in the accommodation at one training camp in South Africa.

"We used Laszlo`s slippers because he has enormous, size 46 feet," Guttler said. "That`s useful for propulsion, and for swatting bugs."

By the time Guttler retired in 2003, Cseh had won his first major medal, a silver in the 400 medley at the world championships...behind the up-and-coming Phelps.

The pair`s rivalry continued, although nearly every time they met Cseh was debilitated in one way or another.

At the 2004 Athens Olympics, Cseh broke his foot a few weeks before the race and finished with a bronze in the 400m medley. Phelps, healthy, won six golds and set a world record in the 400 medley.

In 2005, Phelps used the Montreal World Championships to experiment and skipped the 400 medley, which Cseh won. In 2007, Cseh had a bad year, while Phelps took seven golds and five world records.

Then came Beijing, and the triple duel, with a clean sweep by Phelps en route to his eight golds and seven world records. Hungarians were glued to their television sets.

Sandor Demjan, one of the country`s richest people, was so impressed with Cseh`s performance that he upped the prize money that the government offered to silver-medal winners to match the amount received by gold medallists.

"Laszlo Cseh gave a performance at the Beijing Games that only the greatest can," Demjan told Reuters in an emailed reply to questions. "His three silvers were right up there with three golds in the eyes of all Hungarian fans.

"The duel of Phelps and Laszlo Cseh enchanted the fans of swimming and enhanced the sport`s popularity. This should give some consolation to Laszlo, too."

After Beijing, a streak of bad luck haunted Cseh, while Phelps ruled supreme in the swimming world. At the 2009 World Championships, Cseh was bothered by illness and restricted to a silver and a bronze. The 2011 event was marred by a bad recurrence of his asthma.

"I had emergency medication with me, but the asthma attack came during the preliminaries of the 400 medley," Cseh said. "There was nothing I could do. It pissed me off because I prepared very hard for that event."

Again he had to make do with a bronze. So, when choosing tactics for the preparation for London, Cseh, now 26, decided he would do everything to reach the top.

"I am good enough for a medal anytime," he said. "I can`t be content with that. I will take risks... I will try the craziest things if I think they are useful, rather than settle for a Beijing-like result."

He tries to block Phelps from his mind and says it is the clock he is trying to beat. That is what Guttler, still a good friend, advises him too.

"Swimming isn`t boxing," Guttler said. "You can`t focus on one individual. You have the entire field to beat. There are new swimmers, surprises. You have to do the best you can, and hope it`s enough."

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