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Ryan Lochte's 400 IM miss and injury could derail Olympic prospects

OMAHA, Neb. – Ryan Lochte moved with aching slowness down the steps from the pool deck in CenturyLink Center, each step obviously painful.

The old warrior of American swimming, willing to swim the brutal 400-meter individual medley in his 30s, was all but carried out of the arena on his shield. Dealing with a groin pull from the morning preliminary session, Lochte faltered in the final 200 meters and finished third – and third place is death at the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Only the top two advance to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Those two were a pair of Georgia Bulldogs: Chase Kalisz, heir to the 400 IM throne from his lifelong mentor and idol, Michael Phelps; and hard-closing Jay Litherland, a triplet who is only distinguishable from swimming brothers Kevin and Mick by his prowess in the water.

Chase Kalisz, left, reacts with Ryan Lochte after winning the men's 400-meter IM in Omaha, Neb. (AP)
Chase Kalisz, left, reacts with Ryan Lochte after winning the men's 400-meter IM in Omaha, Neb. (AP)

Lochte was left behind. And left to wonder how great a toll the 400 IM has taken on his hopes of making a fourth American Olympic team.

The 11-time Olympic medalist, on the Mount Rushmore of American male swimmers, is entered in five other events in these trials: the 200 freestyle (preliminary heats Monday), 100 free (Wednesday), 200 backstroke (Thursday), 200 IM (Thursday) and 100 butterfly (Friday). He is the top seed in the 200 free, eighth in the 100 free, fourth in the 200 back, second in the 200 IM and fifth in the 100 fly.

Lochte was unlikely to swim all those events at peak health. Now the question is how compromised he could be by the groin pull, and which events could be jeopardized.

“I don’t know,” Lochte said. “I’m going to keep working on it day-in and day-out and hopefully it gets better throughout the days. ... I’ll hopefully get a couple of cortisone shots just to help it, but hopefully it’ll be better by tomorrow.”

It wasn't better Monday morning, but Lochte swam through the discomfort to advance to the 200 freestyle semifinals Monday night by finishing fifth in the prelims.

"I feelt it right now," Lochte said moments after the race. "I'm in pain. But pain is temporary – I guess."

Lochte said he opted against a cortisone shot, instead trying to massage and stretch to alleviate that pain and regain freedom of movement. He pushed through it with a trademark powerful underwater effort on the last turn of the 200 free, even though he felt the injury most on the turns.

"I put everything I could in that turn, and it didn't feel right," Lochte said. "… I can't dwell on it. It's what it is, a constant pain, but I have to deal with it."

The groin injury occurred swimming breaststroke, and that is one of the four legs of the IM. Which means the 200 IM – where he and Phelps are far ahead of the rest of the American competition – could be a struggle.

“If you don’t have legs in breaststroke, you might as well call the race,” Phelps said. “But Ryan is very tough. If anybody can come back, it’s him.”

In terms of effectiveness at this meet, Lochte could be reduced to a 200 freestyler and 200 backstroker, which would reduce the quality of the U.S. team. If so, there will surely be some regret about his event choices for this meet.

The 31-year-old was a somewhat reluctant recruit back to the 400 IM. Lochte won the gold medal in it in 2012, but training for that race at an advanced swimming age is like being an NFL running back in your 30s – the wear and tear is considerable. It is, by and large, a younger man’s race.

“I think it's tough because of what you have to do in training,” said Bob Bowman, coach of Phelps, Kalisz and the U.S. men’s team for Rio. “I'm sure somebody in their 30s could do it if they could get the motivation to do the training, but that's tough. You’ve got to think somebody like Ryan or Michael, they've been doing this for 20 years and probably at a super-high level for 15 years, and there's only so long you can sustain that kind of work.”

Phelps barely had the appetite for it four years ago, shorting his training and paying the price with a shocking fourth-place finish in the 400 IM in London. Since then, he has handed the baton to Kalisz – and at times figuratively beaten him with that baton.

Michael Phelps (R) congratulates Chase Kalisz after Kalisz won the men's 400 IM Sunday. (AFP)
Michael Phelps (R) congratulates Chase Kalisz after Kalisz won the men's 400 IM Sunday. (AFP)

The two have known each other since Kalisz, now 22, was a tiny beginning swimmer at North Baltimore Aquatic Club. Kalisz and his friends used to go out into the Meadowbrook training facility parking lot and spin the rims on Phelps’ Escalade, then pester him for autographs that they would trade for T-shirts from opposing teams.

“I’m so happy for Chase,” Phelps said. “I was crying when I was hugging him. He’s like a brother.”

But Phelps has been a taskmasking big brother. When I watched them practice in Tempe, Ariz., in July, Phelps verbally jabbed at Kalisz. He was pushing his protégé to be the best he could be.

“I’m very hard on him,” Phelps said. “There was a time he actually asked Bob for me to back off. I knew the potential.”

Said Bowman: “When Michael gets on you, it's pretty severe, right? And it's kind of like nonstop for a while. When I do it it's like a nuclear bomb got dropped on your head for about two-and-a-half minutes, but after that it's over. But Michael kind of keeps it going. So I think it really pushed him and really got him out of his comfort zone.”

With Bowman and Phelps exhorting him, Kalisz trained like a fiend throughout the last year in preparation for this one event. He took a year off from Georgia and moved to Arizona to train there, pointing everything toward June 26, 2016.

“This was the one thing I wanted for my entire life,” Kalisz said. “I never really thought past, like, standing on the Olympic podium winning a medal. Obviously it's been in my mind for the past few years but since I can remember I just wanted to be on the Olympic team. I wanted to be a U.S. Olympian.”

Now he is. And for the time being, Ryan Lochte is not.

The other 400 IM champion of the night is an Olympic newcomer as well. Maya DiRado fulfilled the first step in what could be a breakout meet, controlling the race throughout and beating Elizabeth Beisel – who made her third Olympic team – by more than three seconds.

DiRado had the race tightly in hand for the entire final 100, which allowed her to soak in a moment she’d been dreaming of for a long time.

“I was thinking, ‘This is not real life, I’m imagining this, I’m still in my afternoon nap,’ “ she said.

Instead, it was real. The Stanford graduate, who has resolutely said she will retire at age 23 after the Olympics to begin a business career, started her farewell tour in grand fashion.

“I guess there is no way to know for sure, but I think the reason I’ve had this success this year is because I know that swimming is wrapping up for me and it’s so much easier to work hard every day and push myself to be excited about all the little things that make swimming great,” she said.

Sunday night, Maya DiRado made swimming great. So did Chase Kalisz. For one of the rare times in his gilded career, Ryan Lochte was on the other side.