Michael Phelps outraced Ryan Lochte in the 200-meter freestyle at the Charlotte UltraSwim Friday but both US favorites for the London Olympics lost out to hometown hero Ricky Berens. Berens won in 1min, 47.32secs with Phelps second in 1:48.01 and Lochte sixth in 1:49.70 in a sign that each swimmer was on a different training schedule ahead of the Olympics and the US Olympic trials next month at Omaha, Nebraska. “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 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 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.”
