Excellent Article on USA Swimming site - for those worried that Ryan won't be ready for Shanghai

http://usaswimming.org/ViewNewsArticle.aspx?TabId=0&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en&ItemId=3379&mid=9874

By Mike Gustafson//Correspondent

For Ryan Lochte, to say that 2011 is slightly different from the previous year, 2010, would be an understatement.

Flashback to last year when Lochte was the toast of the town, fresh off his six gold-medal performance at the Pan Pacific Championships.

Later, Lochte became the first person to set a world record at the Short Course World Championships since “tech suits” were banned by FINA. All in all, Ryan Lochte had a fantastic 2010.

In 2011, however, Lochte’s been relatively under the radar.

Before each USA Swimming Grand Prix, you have to scan down the list of swimmers in the psyche sheet just to see if Lochte’s swimming the event. And, if he is (which is almost a certainty, since he swims everything) you wonder just how fast he’ll go. You have the notion that Lochte’s training harder than before, training through each meet, and using these in-season Grand Prix meets as training tools to prepare for this summer’s World Championships.

In other words: No one (besides Coach Troy) knows where Lochte’s at.

He’s had a quiet six months since last December’s World Championships. Indeed, Lochte has some good and noteworthy performances, but he seems to gain almost more attention from the color of his swim brief (which is ever-changing, including sky blue, pink and white) than from his actual racing. He hasn’t been winning all his races at these Grand Prixs. In contrast, it almost seems like he’s competing in the most events possible, oftentimes having zero time between events.

So what gives? Well, there’s two things that could be happening right now:

1.) The Calm before the Storm. Lochte’s simply training himself to death, and he’s not entirely focused on in-season meets. Indeed, this probably is the strategy for a guy who has won the Golden Goggle for Swimmer of the Year. When you’re that good, you turn your focus more on the end-of-the-season performances (similar to LeBron James and the Miami Heat right now).

2.) See Point #1.

Sometimes fans will ask me, “What’s going on with Lochte?” They’ll see him fading to third, fourth or fifth place and think that maybe he’s not in shape.

Answer: Nothing is going on with Ryan Lochte. He’s in great shape. He’s doing what he needs to be doing. He’s just training really, really hard. And just because he’s not winning multiple races at these in-season meets doesn’t mean that the storm isn’t coming, that we won’t see vintage Lochte step into the limelight and steal swimming’s spotlight once again.

Swimming isn’t like football, where every weekend packs different storylines, different superstars, different swings in momentum. Swimming is more like chess. You spend a lifetime aligning the pieces, working on strategy, planning ahead, and in one fell swoop, it’s over, and someone is crowned champion.

The swimming season is a slow build, and I’m beginning to understand that Ryan Lochte understands that better than almost everyone.