US great Michael Phelps Friday warned he was roaring back to form for the Shanghai world championships as China stood on the verge of a historic sweep of the diving medals. Phelps said he was out to avenge some stinging upsets this year, including two 200m butterfly losses to China’s Wu Peng which ended a nine-year winning streak that the American had hoped to continue until retirement.
The 14-time Olympic champion, 26, will be the star attraction in the pool events from Sunday as he kick-starts his campaign for London 2012, which he insists will be his last Games. “I think the last six to eight months have been really good, leading up to this, being able to have some solid training, some consistent training,” Phelps said. “Having those races (against Wu) happen earlier in the year hopefully I was able to learning something from them and I can swim faster here,” he added. Excitement is building for the swimming events, which were boosted when Brazilian sprint champion Cesar Cielo was cleared to compete despite testing positive for a banned diuretic.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport let Cielo, 24, off with a warning on Thursday, dismissing calls by world governing body FINA for a three-month ban. Brazilian officials hoped the row would not affect the Olympic champion as he prepares to defend his 50m and 100m titles. “We don’t know,” a spokeswoman told AFP, when asked if Cielo was confident of victory. “After all this we don’t know but we are there to support him.”
