Ryan Lochte competes during the men's 400 IM on Sunday at the FINA World Championships, which he won for his fifth gold medal. (Photo: REUTERS/David Gray)

With a final-day haul of four golds, one silver and one bronze, the U.S. team secured the overall and gold-medal counts. A little revelry would have been understandable, especially from Lochte, who concluded these championships as the undisputed star with another runaway gold-medal performance.

Yet Lochte sounded almost despondent as he assessed his week’s work after crushing the competition in the 400-meter individual medley, a race he won by more than four seconds.

“For the most part, I’m not really happy,” said Lochte, who touched the wall in 4 minutes, 7.13 seconds — 3.29 seconds over Phelps’s world record. “I mean, getting five gold medals is definitely great, but the times I’ve went, I know I can go a lot faster. A lot of places in my races I messed up on…. I have a full year to make sure I have those perfect swims.”

Lochte’s performance here looked much better to just about everyone else. He beat Phelps, who won four golds, two silvers and a bronze, in two head-to-head races and won by huge margins in every other event in which he competed. His dominance ignited huge hopes for 2012 Olympics in London, but there were other promising sidebars. The team’s medal total of 29 and 16 golds surpassed its performance at the last world championships in Rome in 2009, when it captured 22 and 10.

“It was great beginning [Saturday] night and it just got greater tonight,” U.S. women’s team coach Jack Bauerle said. Tonight “was just sort of the topper…. This is unbelievably encouraging.”

If the men’s team looked well-armed with the multi-tasking Lochte and Phelps, who have both tried to downplay their growing rivalry, the women’s side displayed impressive depth. The night’s biggest stunner, though, came from China’s Sun Yang, 19, who broke the world record in the men’s 1,500, the only mark that did not fall before speedsuits were banned two years ago. Sun finished in 14:34.14, knocking .42 off of Grant Hackett’s 10-year-old record.

For the United States, Jessica Hardy and Elizabeth Beisel won individual golds in the 50 breast and 400 individual medley, respectively. Rebecca Soni claimed a bronze in the 50 breast to add to her three golds. Two years after winning just two golds at the world championships in Rome, the U.S. women got three from newcomer Missy Franklin, 16, and took home eight.

“The performances were terrific across the board,” Bauerle said.

That was not the case among the men, where Lochte and Phelps all but three of the individual U.S. men’s medals. Tyler Clary won two, including the silver in Sunday’s 400 individual medley.

Lochte, who won golds in the 200 and 400 individual medleys, 200 freestyle, 200 backstroke and 4×200 free relay and a bronze in the 4×100 freestyle, insisted that he hadn’t taken over as “top dog,” but others saw it differently

“He hasn’t just been exceptional this year, he’s been exceptional the last five,” said Clary. “Unfortunately, he’s been hugely overshadowed by what Michael was doing. If Michael hadn’t existed, Ryan would be Michael…. I think here he wasn’t going to let anybody beat him at any cost.”

Phelps got his final gold with a flourish, helping Nick Thoman, Mark Gangloff and Nathan Adrian win the 4×100 medley relay. U.S. men’s coach Eddie Reese admitted he pondered putting Lochte on the backstroke leg even though he didn’t swim in the 100 back at this meet, but worried he would be tired after the 400 medley final. The move nearly backfired; Thoman led off in third place.

By the time Phelps entered the water for the butterfly leg, the Americans had fallen to fourth. Phelps, though, climbed to second with a swim of 50.57 seconds, and Adrian produced a time of 47. 64 on the anchor to overtake Japan’s Shogo Hihara while holding off a late-charging James Magnussen of Australia.

“I’ve been able to gather more motivation here than I already had,” Phelps said. “I think that’s something that will help me get into better shape for next year … Ryan is clearly working hard and clearly in the best shape he’s probably ever been, and that’s why he is where he is.”

What remains to be seen is where everyone will be next year.

“We’ve got people coming,” Reese said. “The Olympic trials, I think it’s going to be the best meet any of us have ever seen.”

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Missy Franklin (right) hugs Australia's Belinda Hocking after the women's 200 back final on Saturday at the FINA World Championships. Franklin won gold, while Hocking finished second. (Photo: MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

She’s not only been the breakout swimmer for the United States, she’s also been the top U.S. female competitor in the last major tune-up for the 2012 Summer Games in London. Every time she’s hit the water, she’s lived up to the nickname U.S. women’s team coach Jack Bauerle handed her a couple of weeks ago: Missile Franklin.

On Saturday night, she won a pair of gold medals and took part in two American-record performances, raising her week’s tally to three golds, one silver and one bronze medal.

“I said this all along: she’s s stud,” 14-time Olympic gold medal winner Michael Phelps said after winning the 100 fly final in 50.71 seconds as American Tyler McGill got the bronze in 51.26. “She’s super-good. To be able to watch what she’s doing, it’s incredible. . . . She does it all.”

In the 200 backstroke final, Franklin finished in 2 minutes, 05.10 seconds – 0.8 better than her American-record swim Friday, 0.96 faster than silver medal winner Belinda Hocking of Australia and the fifth-fastest time in history.

Shortly after belting out the National Anthem during the medal ceremony, Franklin anchored the U.S. 4×100 medley relay team that won the gold, went under the American record and came within 0.17 of the world record. Natalie Coughlin, Rebecca Soni, Dana Vollmer and Franklin each outswam the competition to post a time of 3:52.36, allowing the United States to top China by 3.25 seconds and Australia by 4.77. Franklin swam the freestyle leg in 52.79 seconds.

“It’s been unbelievable,” Franklin said. “I knew this was the last session of my first world championships and I will never have that again. I wanted to make sure I came here and left everything in the pool and I did that, and I am so, so happy. . . . I’ve never been so happy in my life.”

All week, Franklin’s teammates have commented on – and occasionally laughed out loud at – her infectious enthusiasm. She has bubbled over with nothing short of pure joy at every opportunity, beginning when she got up during the rookie show that preceded this event and produced a lengthy hip-hop routine that left the entire team in stitches.

“Having someone on the team to come in and be like, ‘Oh yes! It’s prelims!’” Vollmer said. “It’s really awesome.”

“She’s really happy and excited to race, moreso than any other swimmer on the team,” Coughlin said. “All of us are trying to mimic that as much as possible.”

Most would also be happy to mimic her performances. Great Falls’ Kate Ziegler added a bronze medal to the silver she won last week in the 1,500 final, finishing behind world-record holder Rebecca Adlington (8:17.51) and Denmark’s Lotte Friis (8:18.20) in the 800 freestyle with a time of 8:23.36.

“I’m a little disappointed, because I wanted to be faster,” Ziegler said. “This meet has definitely been a stepping stone, my first [major] international competition back since the [2008] Olympics.”

On the opening night of the meet last Sunday, Franklin swam the fastest leg on the silver-medal winning 4×100 relay team, and the second-fastest leg of any competitor from any country. Four days later, she won a bronze medal in the 50 backstroke on the same night she helped the U.S. team to a gold-medal in the 4×200 relay – with a time that would have won her the gold in the individual 200 had she been entered in the race.

Friday, she led all semifinalists in the 200 back, breaking Margaret Hoelzer’s three-year-old American record in the event. Only Soni, who won both individual breaststroke events before joining in Saturday’s gold-medal relay, has a comparable collection of medals on the U.S. women’s side.

“Missy is very, very unique,” Coughlin said. “She’s got the maturity to handle the pressure.”

Phelps, too, won his first world title at age 16, setting a world record while winning the 200 butterfly in Fukuoka, Japan, in 2001.

“I kinda remember myself being like that,” Phelps said. “Full of energy all the time, always happy, never tired, always swimming fast. . . . She’ll remember this for a long time.”

Bauerle sensed Franklin had star potential back in December of 2009, when she joined Phelps and other stars on the senior U.S. team at an international meet in Manchester, England. There, she led off the women’s 4×100 relay – as a 14-year-old.

“She’s unbelievably coordinated in the water,” Bauerle said. “She just has fun with the sport. That’s how you try to teach it, but it seldom works out perfectly.”

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Ryan Lochte swims en route to a gold medal in the men's 200 back on Friday at the FINA World Championships. (Photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images)

At the start of this meet, swimming fans wondered whether Lochte could hold his own against Phelps on such a major stage. The question, now, has changed: Can Phelps get his throne back at the London Olympics next summer?

Lochte led from start to finish in the backstroke final, then produced a dramatic comeback victory in a gripping relay with the fastest leg of the night. The two races had this in common: Lochte touched the wall about a body length ahead of the silver medal winners.

As American Rebecca Soni completed a gold-medal double in the breaststroke and Missy Franklin, 16, continued to raise hopes that she will be the next great U.S. female swimmer — she set an American record in the semifinals of the 200 backstroke — Lochte kept the pressure on Phelps, who has won two golds, two silvers and a bronze, for that title on the men’s side.

“If you go by medals alone . . . it’s a definite changing of the guard,” said U.S. teammate Tyler Clary, who won the bronze medal in the 200 backstroke. “Some people might say Michael’s not exactly on his game, but all that matters in a race is who comes prepared that day, and lately it’s been Ryan.”

Lochte won the 200 backstroke in 1 minute, 52.96 seconds, topping Japan’s Ryosuke Irie, who finished in 1:54.11, and Clary, 1:54.69. Shortly after the medal ceremony, and after Phelps advanced in the heats of the 100 fly, Lochte, Phelps, Peter Vanderkaay and Ricky Berens stepped on the pool deck for the final of a relay the United States has won in every major championships since the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

The Americans prevailed, winning in 7:02.67 over France (7:04.81) and China (7:05.67) but it wasn’t easy. Phelps led at the 150 mark, only to be passed over the last 50 by Germany’s Paul Biedermann and France’s Yannick Agnel.

When Vanderkaay jumped in the water, he trailed Germany by .33 seconds and the French by .28. Phelps looked dismayed. Vanderkaay, however, regained the lead by .46 seconds.

“Obviously, I would have liked to have swum a little faster in the leadoff,” Phelps said. “I’ve said this every night so far: Hopefully, with more training, I can swim faster. . . . These guys have pulled the back end of the relay together really well.”

France’s Jeremy Stravius inched ahead of Berens on the third leg, putting the United States behind by 0.65 as Lochte dived in against Fabien Gilot. The two were just about even after 100 meters before Lochte sped away, giving the United States a victory margin of 2.14 seconds. The Chinese finished 5.65 seconds back.

“There’s two guys you want to have at the end of a relay, Michael and Ryan,” Berens said. “When Ryan is hot like he is now, you don’t want anyone else at the end of a relay.”

The last man celebrating Lochte’s achievements this week has been Lochte; he hasn’t so much as offered a satisfied smile or waggled a finger at the end of his gold-medal races. Both he and Phelps have two more events to swim. Both will compete in the 4×100 medley relay; Phelps has the 100 butterfly final and Lochte, the 400 individual medley. Lochte seems determined not to break his concentration as he seeks to leave here with six golds.

“I have a lot of confidence, especially after what happened last year” at the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, when he won six gold medals, Lochte said. “I still have one more [individual] race left to finish off this meet, then, after that, get ready for 2012.”

Clary said anyone who discounts Phelps next year would look like a fool, but noted that things had suddenly gotten very interesting entering the 2012 Summer Games.

“People like controversy,” Clary said. “People like to see the greatest Olympic champion of all time possibly get beat.”

They also enjoy seeing new champions emerge. Franklin, who has earned a gold, silver and bronze already, made herself the gold-medal favorite in Saturday’s 200 backstroke final by posting the fastest time in the semifinals. Her finish in 2:05.90 went under Margaret Hoeltzer’s American best of 2:06.09 from 2008.

“She is awesome,” U.S. teammate Elizabeth Beisel said. “She didn’t even know it was an American record. . . . She was like, ‘What? No way!’ She definitely one day is going to be the face of the women’s team.”

Time — most likely about a year — will tell who will be the face of the men’s team.

“Times speak for themself,” Clary said. “The fact that just about every one of [Lochte’s] races he’s pretty much done it hands down, that’s all the speaking that needs to be done.”

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United States swimmers (from left) Missy Franklin, Dagny Knutson, Katie Hoff and Allison Schmitt celebrate after taking gold in the women's 4x200 free relay on Thursday at the FINA World Championships. (MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

Franklin, 16, not only gave the United States a commanding lead, she also posted a time that would have won the gold medal in the women’s 200 freestyle final earlier in the week. Her leadoff leg of 1 minute, 55.08 seconds surpassed Italian star Federica Pellegrini’s gold-medal time by 0.50 seconds.

“I looked around at [Alison Schmitt] and said, ‘Did she really go 1:55?’” Hoff said. “That really got me going.”

It got the U.S. team going, too. Americans Dagny Knutson, Hoff and Schmitt held on for the gold medal, winning in 7:46.14 over Australia (7:47.42) and China (7:47.66). The victory avenged the team’s loss to China at this meet two years ago while completing Franklin’s medal collection — gold, silver and bronze — in her first world championship meet.

Franklin also earned silver in Sunday night’s 4×100 final, a race in which only the anchor of the gold-medal winning Dutch team swam faster than she. In the 50 back, a non-Olympic event, Franklin finished by behind Russia’s Anastasia Zueva (27.79) and Japan’s Aya Terakawa (27.93) in 28.01.

Bob Bowman, Michael Phelps’s longtime coach, found himself looking on with amazement.

“Missy is awesome,” Bowman said. “I think we’ll remember tonight as when it all started. It reminds me of somebody I know.”

Franklin, who at 14 traveled with the U.S. team to world cup meets around the globe, hasn’t created quite the splash Phelps did at 16 — he set his first world record at age 15 — but she’s awed nonetheless. She has achieved the qualifying times for every individual event at next year’s Olympic trials; her coach, Todd Schmitz said she hadn’t decided on which ones to direct her focus.

“On the first day of [this] meet, she looked at me and said, ‘I belong here,’” Schmitz said. “I looked at her and said, ‘Yeah, you do.’ . . . I learned when Missy was 12 that I don’t set the bar, she does.”

Franklin did not compete in the individual 200 because she did not qualify in the event at last year’s Pan Pacific Championships, the qualifying meet. She is also entered in the 200 back, whose final takes place Saturday.

“This is my first world championships,” Franklin said, “and I’m just having the time of my life.”

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Ryan Lochte, left, leads Michael Phelps on the way to winning the men's 200 IM final on Thursday at the FINA World Championships. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

Lochte showed no annoyance, but found the perfect way Thursday night to short-circuit the skepticism about his place in the sport, the doubts about whether he could conquer a super-fit Phelps.

Lochte didn’t merely defeat Phelps for the second time this week in the 200-meter individual medley in front of a stunned crowd at the Oriental Sports Center, he also set a world record – the first since polyurethane speedsuits were banned two years ago.

“I just wanted to do something that everyone thought was not possible,” Lochte said. “All the hard work I’ve done this year has definitely paid off.”

Lochte took the lead after the first butterfly leg and held on as Phelps closed in the waning meters, touching the wall in 1 minute 54.00 seconds – 0.10 faster than the world mark he had set at the 2009 world championships in Rome.

Phelps finished in 1:54.16, a personal best that went under the 1:54.23 he swam at the 2008 Summer Games. The silver medal left Phelps temporarily at loss for words – he uncharacteristically declined to speak with reporters immediately after the race, delaying his comments until the formal press conference that always follows the medal ceremony. He later apologized, admitting he needed time to collect his thoughts.

“I thought I had it on the last stroke,” Phelps said. “I felt myself gaining and gaining and gaining. It is what it is. I fell short. I think that race will provide a lot of motivation for the next year…. There is lots of frustration going through my head.”

The pair swam side-by-side in lanes 4 and 5 and quickly left the field behind. Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh, the silver medalist at the ‘09 world championships and ‘08 Olympics, came home in 1:57.69 – 3.69 seconds behind Lochte.

“I think you watched the two best IM swimmers ever swim tonight,” said Lochte’s coach, Gregg Troy. “I think you got a real treat… I don’t know if we’re going to call a few hundredths of a second passing Michael Phelps, but it puts us in a good lead.”

Phelps, who has earned one gold medal, two silvers and one bronze here, has one remaining individual event, the 100 butterfly. But his week will be remembered for his failure to win in two head-to-head races with Lochte, who has emerged as a major challenger to Phelps’s international dominance.

Phelps, however, continued to look inward rather than across the lane lines.

“He’s really just done all the little, small things right,” Phelps said. “He’s super-focused right now. You can see that. He’s putting races together that are helping him to win. To be honest, I think he’s more prepared. I think that’s what it’s coming down to….

“To be able to go faster than he went in 2009 is, I think, incredible. [But] I didn’t win because I wasn’t as prepared as I should have been.”

Lochte, who later posted the fastest time in the 200 backstroke semifinals (1:55.65), shrugged off Phelps’s assessment of the race.

“That’s his call,” Lochte said. “I can’t really comment that much about it. You’re either ready or you’re not. If he says he wasn’t ready, I guess he wasn’t ready.”

Lochte, who won four medals at the 2008 Summer Games and six golds at last year’s Pan Pacific Championships, was ready. U.S. teammate Tyler Clary claimed after the race that he had predicted the very time Lochte laid down. He said he had been kidding with Lochte and told him: “Why don’t you stop being a big baby and go 1:54.00 like you should?”

Added Clary: “He looked at me like I was crazy…. He’s having an incredible year.”

On Tuesday, Lochte chased Phelps down in the 200 freestyle after Phelps took the lead at the halfway point. On Thursday, Phelps swam the last 50 in 27.36 – .13 faster than Lochte – but finished with a long stroke that might have cost him.

“I thought the last stroke was the stroke I needed to take,” he said. “I probably could have rushed [another] stroke in there. Maybe I would have gotten to the wall faster.”

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Michael Phelps (left) talks with Ryan Lochte after their men's 200 IM semifinal on Wednesday at the FINA World Championships. Earlier in the day, Phelps captured gold in the men's 200 fly.(Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

That would be the 200-meter butterfly, the event he dominated for the last decade – until this year. He lost for the first time in nine years and some 60 races back in April. And then he lost again. And then again.

Phelps ended that humbling three-race losing streak by extending a far more impressive one: He earned his fifth world title in the event.

A day after letting fellow American Ryan Lochte overtake him in the 200 freestyle final at the swimming world championships, Phelps showed the will and late-race stamina that have been his trademark to claim the gold medal 10 years after winning his first world championship at age 16. He overtook Japan’s Takeshi Matsuda over the last 50 while holding off China’s Wu Peng.

“I didn’t want to lose that race again,” Phelps said. “Having a number of defeats this year, that was extremely frustrating for me. I didn’t like that feeling. I kind of wanted to have the feeling of winning a race again.”

Phelps, the 14-time Olympic gold medal winner, touched the wall in 1 minute, 53.34 seconds. Matsuda finished in 1:54.01. Wu, who had scored two of the victories over Phelps, came home in 1:54.67, disappointing the crowd at the Oriental Sports Center that had drowned out the announcement of his name before the race’s start.

“I hope I can achieve better results in London” at the 2012 Summer Games, Wu said.

At his training home at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, Phelps often stares at a giant picture of himself from 2001, when he won his first world title in Fukuoka, Japan. His race winning streak began a year later, after he lost by 0.2 seconds to Tom Malchow at that year’s Pan Pacific Championships.

“I always look at myself in that picture and think I look so young,” Phelps said. “I was kind of young.”

He won his second world title in Barcelona in 2003, when, among other achievements, he set two world records in two different events on the same day. He did not compete in the 200 fly at the 2005 world championships in Montreal; two years later in Barcelona, he not only won his third 200 fly world title but broke his world record in the event by more than about 1.5 seconds. At Rome two years ago, he broke the world record again.

“It may not always be a fun event,” Phelps said, “but it’s something I’ve built my whole career off of.”

And it seemed in jeopardy before Wednesday’s final. Phelps had failed in his first two bids to earn gold medals at these championships, claiming a bronze with the 4×100 freestyle relay team and a silver in the men’s 200 freestyle, where he had been overtaken in the second half of the race by U.S. teammate Lochte.

And he had suffered the three defeats that his coach, Bob Bowman, called “the definitive wakeup call.” The first, in Ann Arbor, Mich., to Wu, provided the biggest shock. The second came in Charlotte in May when Wu topped him again; Phelps faltered in the last 50, running out of energy. The third came weeks later in Santa Clara, Calif., to Australian Nick D’Arcy.

Phelps went out fast Wednesday, hoping to get far enough ahead to resist any late challenges. He said he considered Matsuda, a great finisher, the biggest threat in the field. Matsuda trailed for the first 100 meters but passed Phelps before the final wall.

“I had a chance to win against Michael Phelps, and I didn’t win,” Matsuda said through a translator. “In the end, I felt a bit regretful. . . . In the last 50 meters, [I] was very tired. [I] could feel that Michael Phelps was catching up.”

Phelps came hard, swimming the final 50 in under 30 seconds – the only swimmer in the field to do so.

“I didn’t really work the underwaters like I should have, because I was trying to save up my legs for the last 50,” Phelps said. “I dug as deep as I could the last 50 . . . I tried to put it in the biggest overgear I could put it in, and just get to the wall.”

After accepting his medal and posing for a few photos, Phelps sprinted toward the aquatic center’s underbelly to prepare for another race, a semifinal of the 200 individual medley. Phelps easily advanced to Thursday’s final with the second-best time: 1:57.26. Lochte topped the night’s swimmers with a time of 1:56.74.

Phelps said he wanted to keep his emotions under control, knowing he had more work to do at this meet. And the margin of victory left him as wary as excited.

“I still want more in that event,” Phelps said. “I want to be faster. That was a little too close for comfort. . . . This is just a small step for my next year.”

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Ryan Lochte, center, shows his gold medal with Michael Phelps, silver, and Germany's Paul Biedermann, bronze, after the men's 200 free on Tuesday at the FINA Swimming World Championships. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

The world saw it again Tuesday night, only Phelps wasn’t the guy who did it.

Phelps was the guy who lost the lead.

Fellow American Ryan Lochte overtook Phelps, the defending Olympic champion, and held off Germany’s Paul Biedermann, the defending world champion, to win the 200-meter freestyle at the swimming world championships in 1 minute, 44.44 seconds.

Phelps went out fast but couldn’t finish; he got the silver in 1:44.79. Biederman claimed the bronze in 1:44.88, nearly three seconds slower than when he broke Phelps’s world record in the event wearing one of the now-banned speedsuits at the ’09 championships.

“It’s a big confidence boost,” said Lochte, who rarely competes in the event. “I guess it was my time tonight.”

The race left Phelps still seeking his first gold medal after two races here – he won a bronze in the men’s 4×100 relay Sunday. It also bolstered Lochte’s burgeoning reputation, hinting that he no longer is merely a capable rival for the world’s best swimmer, but perhaps a true challenger to that title.

Not that Phelps seemed quite ready to acknowledge that.

Phelps suggested during an introspective news conference well after the race that things would be much different once he got back to the serious training he has largely neglected since he won eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Games.

“With the training I’ve had in the last six to eight months, that’s all I had in the tank,” Phelps said. “I would have loved to win but I think this is something that is going to help me next year. . . . The reason why I haven’t been able to swim as fast as I wanted to the last two years is: it’s all my fault

“I know I can go faster than that, that I know for sure. . . . That time won’t win a gold medal next summer.”

Lochte, who won six gold medals at last year’s Pan Pacific Championships, had never beaten Phelps at a world championships or Olympic Games before Tuesday. Yet he absorbed the result as if he expected it all along, not so much cracking a smile as he pulled off his goggles and stared at the scoreboard. Korea’s Park Tae Hwan got fourth in 1:44.92; France’s Yannick Agnel also went under 1:45 with his finish in 1:44.99.

Phelps, too, kept his cool. Two days after expressing deep disappointment with the U.S. relay team’s third-place finish, Phelps looked for the positive.

“I’m bummed I didn’t win,” Phelps said, “at the same time . . . . I’m headed in the right direction and very pleased.”

Phelps admitted to feeling a bit of satisfaction at beating Biedermann, who not only stole his world record at the ’09 worlds in Rome but also trounced him in the race.

“In ’09, I was the underdog and nobody knows me,” Biedermann said. “Now, it’s a little bit more difficult for me.”

Lochte executed his strategy perfectly. He anticipated that Phelps would go out hard and stayed close enough to strike. On the second turn, Lochte flew off the wall and swam that length faster than anyone else in the pool by more than 0.4 seconds. The field closed over the last 50 – including Phelps, who swam the last length 0.29 seconds faster than Lochte — but no one could close the gap.

Bob Bowman, Phelps’s coach, said Phelps followed orders perfectly, albeit a tenth or so slower than he would have liked. But he simply didn’t fool Lochte, who speculated about how Phelps would approach the race the day before it took place.

“I know he wants that clear water,” Lochte said Monday night. “I’m going to move over to the lane line and draft off of him.”

Lochte joked with Phelps on the medal stand about his having to compete in the night’s 200 butterfly semifinals later – Phelps advanced to the final with the third-best time (1:54.85). The pair had also goofed around in the ready room, with both singing to the hip hop playing on Phelps’s headphones. The music was so loud, Phelps said, Lochte could hear it standing next to him.

Lochte will face Phelps again in the 200 individual medley, whose heats take place Wednesday morning. Lochte, who went under Phelps’s 200 medley world record at the 2009 world championship, will enter that race as the favorite.

“I am definitely a completely different swimmer than I was in 2008,” said Lochte, who won two golds and two bronze medals at the 2008 Summer Games. “I’m a lot stronger and a lot smarter just going into my races.”

See also: Kate Ziegler ends medal drought with silver in 1,500-meter freestyle

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Dana Vollmer competes on her way to winning the gold medal in the women's 100 fly on Monday at the FINA Swimming World Championships. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Yet she became the first American to collect a gold medal at the swimming world championships here Monday, righting Team USA’s world by toppling a field in the 100-meter butterfly that included the world-record holder and defending world champion.

Vollmer, 23, quite literally rode a wave — actually, a bunch of ocean waves in a new training regimen — to her first major individual title. On a night fellow American Ariana Kukors collected a bronze medal in the 200 individual medley and Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte easily advanced to the men’s 200 freestyle final, Vollmer, finally, stepped to the top of a medal podium all by herself.

“This was absolutely surreal and amazing,” Vollmer said. “To finally win in my favorite event, and to feel like I did it individually … It’s so empowering, so exciting… It kind of felt like I was always second…. Being on all of the relays, and never really being the top shot.”

Vollmer’s performance here has not only been surprising, it’s also been emphatic and convincing. She won Monday in 56.87 seconds, beating Aussie Alicia Coutts (56.94) and China’s Lu Ying (57.06). The time she swam in the preliminaries (56.47) was the fourth-best ever and fastest by a woman not wearing one of the speed suits that were banned in 2009, going under Dutch legend Inge de Bruijn’s 56.61 from 2000.

Early in a meet widely expected to validate the truly skilled and fit swimmers while exposing the pretenders — those who got special enhancement from the speedsuits that led to 43 world records at the ‘09 championships — Vollmer has emerged as a legitimate star. She is within sight of Sarah Sjoestroem’s plastic-suit world record of 56.06.

“I feel like the suits now let more of an athlete’s ability show rather than the technology making the athlete,” said Vollmer, who won an Olympic gold in the 4×200 freestyle relay in 2004.

As Vollmer stepped up in textile, Kukors proved she could perform in both kinds of material. The defending world champion and reigning world-record holder in the 200 medley, Kukors considered her performance against a strong field a victory of sorts — at least, in perception. She finished in 2 minutes, 09.12 seconds, behind China’s Ye Shiwen (2:08.90) and the versatile Coutts (2:09.00).

“I really felt like I needed to prove myself, after 2009, of not just being a ‘suit swimmer,’” said Kukors, who swam a 2:06.15 in a speedsuit. “I’m really proud of that time.”

Vollmer said the extra buoyancy the suits added actually proved burdensome. A natural floater who had emphasized core strength under her coach Teri McKeever, Vollmer said she actually feels sleeker and faster in textile. That feeling has been enhanced as she’s dived into novel training; she has traveled to Fiji and Australia in recent months to work with ocean guru Milt Nelms, who prescribed drills that involve swimming into waves, alongside them, and with them, a practice designed to build strength while encouraging perfect technique.

The workouts have not only helped her stroke, Vollmer said, but they’ve also enhanced her enthusiasm. After pondering retirement when a string of injuries contributed to her failure to make the 2008 Olympic team cut, Vollmer felt rejuvenated.

Even so, the physical problems that have dogged her for years never quite ceased. She noticed last fall she would become easily fatigued in practice, and she did not know why. Nutritionist Anita Nall, the former swimming star who trained at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, ran blood tests and confirmed that Vollmer had a host of food allergies, including to eggs and gluten. She recommended dramatic changes to Vollmer’s diet. Gradually, her strength returned.

But the ailment had taken its toll. She hadn’t been able to train adequately at any distance beyond a sprint. She increased her already significant dependence on ocean workouts, dryland training, dance classes and pilates as a substitute for endless pool workouts. The reduced workload led McKeever to pull Vollmer out of the 200 freestyle here, but it also seemed to enhance her sprints – namely, the 100 fly — and direct her focus.

“I do love the sport,” Vollmer said. “I just didn’t like how I was doing it before.”

Vollmer, who plans to marry former Stanford swimmer Andy Grant Aug. 20, arrived to Shanghai feeling great.

With the 100 freestyle left to swim, she is certain to leave feeling even better.

“That’s part of being seasoned,” McKeever said. “This has been a decade now that she’s been at the national level. She’s had ups and downs, getting through the disappointment of not making Beijing and getting through that, it lets you know you can get through things.”

Michael Phelps looks on during the Men's 4 x 100 Free Relay final on Sunday at the 14th FINA World Championships. The U.S. men finished a disappointing third, breaking a streak of six straight gold medals in major events. (Photo: Clive Rose/GettyImages)

Third place. And it wasn’t a contest.

What a way to kick off the swimming world championships, the final major tune-up for the 2012 London Summer Games. Ending a streak of six straight gold medals in major events, the U.S. men put forward a performance that left them, their coaches and teammates shell-shocked. And mad. And worse.

“Truly,” said Weber-Gale, “I feel sick about it.”

Moments after the U.S. women lost the lead – and earned the silver – on the final leg of their relay, the once-dominant U.S. men never led and finished in 3 minutes, 11.96 seconds at the Oriental Sports Center, behind the Australians (3:11.00) and French (3:11.14).

“It stinks,” Phelps said flatly moments after the race.

He then added later, “As Americans, we want to win everything we do. We want to be the best. . . We all know we can be better than that.”

The race featured a good start by Phelps, two substandard legs from Weber-Gale and Lezak, and a strong but not superb finish by Adrian. It also featured Ryan Lochte, a star of the ’09 world championship relay, relegated to only the preliminary round Sunday morning; his time then was not fast enough to get him onto the night’s squad.

But it looked like the United States could have used him. Weber-Gale misjudged his speed at the start, going out too slowly, and Lezak, a swimmer who relies on heavy rotation in his stroke , got pushed around like a buoy by the waves generated by the teams in front. Weber-Gale’s split (48.33) registered as the 18th fastest of the night; Lezak’s was tied for 17th.

Nearly 90 minutes after the race, Weber-Gale stood in front of reporters, shaking the bouquet he had received on the medal stand.

“It’s pretty embarrassing for me to go slow like that,” Weber-Gale said. “It’s very disappointing for me. Such a slow leg, I feel like it’s my fault we did poorly. I swam nowhere near my ability.”

U.S. men’s head coach Eddie Reese confessed he couldn’t quite believe what he saw on the results sheet. Australian James Magnussen beat Phelps on the opening leg, 47.49 to 48.08. Three men bested Weber-Gale on the second leg and five topped Lezak on the fourth. Two anchors, France’s Fabien Gilot and Italy’s Filippo Magnini, beat Adrian’s concluding 47.40.

“Those other countries did an amazing job,” said Lezak, famous for his gold-medal-saving anchor at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. “It takes 100-percent of a team doing best splits to win nowadays . . . Unfortunately, I was one of the average guys out there.”

As they assembled on the medal stand, the Americans watched the Australians celebrate. They muttered something else entirely.

“We just talked about not liking where we were standing,” Phelps said.

The U.S. women were considerably happier with their silver, despite losing it on the final leg as Dutch anchor Femke Heemskerk dropped the fastest time of the night (52.46) to overtake Dana Vollmer (53.27). The women trailed Netherlands (3:33.96), finishing in 3:34.47 as Germany took third in 3:36.05.

The women got a great start from Natalie Coughlin (54.09) and a jaw-dropping second leg from teen sensation Missy Franklin (52.99). Jessica Hardy faded at the end of her swim but held the lead with a 54.12. Vollmer, who had competed earlier in the 100 butterfly semifinals, could not fend off Heemskerk despite posting a personal best.

“Obviously, you never like diving in ahead and coming in second,” Vollmer said. “Personally, it lights a little bit of a fire for me.”

By night’s end, the U.S. team was just about burning up.

“We never like it,” Reese said. “We think we’re a country that, no matter how good we are in individual events, we always swim the relays . . .We had splits not at all like we thought they would be.”

Notes: Towson’s Katie Hoff emerged disappointed after the final of the 400, where she finished seventh in 4:08.22, more than six seconds behind winner Federica Pellegrini of Italy, who claimed first in 4:01.97. Hoff, a five-time world champion who narrowly made it into the final with the eighth-best qualifying time, said she had hoped to go 4:05 or better.

“It just wasn’t there,” she said. “That little extra-special something that you need to win a race, it wasn’t there. . . It’s obviously good to make a final, other than that. . . ask me tomorrow.”

Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps battle in the final of the 200 meter individual medley in July, 2008. Phelps won and set a new world record of 1:54.80 while Lochte finished second. (Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images)

For the past eight years, the major competitive story line at every meaningful swimming championship has arisen from Michael Phelps’s international and historic dominance. How many medals will he win? How many records will he break? How dramatically will he increase his own legend?

So it’s rather strange to watch Phelps settling into Shanghai for the 2011 world swimming championships this weekend trailed by more curiosity than awe. At the moment, he doesn’t appear to be the best swimmer in his own country, let alone in the world.

That distinction belongs to a free spirit by the name of Ryan Lochte, a two-time Olympian out of the University of Florida, who has muscled past Phelps since the last world championships in 2009, winning more titles, more international acclaim and the distinction of being the most accomplished swimmer on the planet in 2010.

What Michael did in 2008 is definitely going to go down in history,” Lochte said Saturday morning. “It was amazing. But that was three years ago. We’re in 2011, so anything can happen. I know, since 2008, I’m definitely a better swimmer than I was back then. We’re definitely going to put on a show this meet.”

“People think Ryan has caught Michael a little bit,” said Cullen Jones, a U.S. Olympic medalist and sprinter during a recent U.S. meet. “He’s swimming everything.”

As Phelps’s enthusiasm for training has waned since he won eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Lochte has motored by with his head down, setting the stage for a potentially magnificent confrontation or, perhaps, an official changing of the guard, at the Summer Games in London next year. For sure, the two should provide a year of aquatic drama, beginning at the championships here that run through July 31.

Each is scheduled to swim in four individual events and as many as three relays; they will go head-to-head in the 200-meter freestyle and 200 individual medley.

“I’m kind of playing catch-up now,” Phelps, 26, said before leaving for Shanghai. “I think it’s more motivating. I remember back in 2000, 2001, I was trying to climb and climb and finally I got there. Being back in this position, I think, will be kind of fun.”

Contrast of styles

It will surely be fun for fans who have grown weary of seeing Phelps often race nothing but clocks and history. Lochte, a six-time Olympic medalist whose achievements have long been dwarfed by Phelps’s supremacy, is in many ways the competitive twin of the most decorated swimmer in history. Both boast all-around gifts, the ability to handle heavy meet workloads, excellence in the underwater portions of races and nerves of steel.

But if Lochte’s competitive acumen resembles Phelps’s, his personality could hardly be more different. With his scowls and intensity, Phelps often looks like he could rip a diving platform out of the pool deck before he gets in the water. He is routinely set off by the mere scent of an insult. Though also a furious competitor, Lochte can be a master goofball. He gets serious only after he dives in.

“Ryan is the personality,” said Austrian swimmer Markus Rogan, who attended Mount Vernon High and swam for Curl-Burke Swim Club. “Michael is the machine. It’s such a dramatic difference. Ryan is more like a Dennis Rodman. Michael is more like a Tim Duncan.”

In minor races in which times aren’t crucial, Lochte prefers tiny pink, purple, lime or polka-dotted briefs to the conservative black jammer shorts most of his rivals don. He sports signature metallic-emerald-colored high-top sneakers before race finals, and has worn grills — decorative metal plates for one’s teeth — on medal stands.

At U.S. meets, Phelps always draws full-throated roars from crowds. The cheers for the curly-haired, blue-eyed Lochte — who shows off an extensive modeling portfolio on his Web site, www.ryanlochte.com — often take on the higher pitch of squealing teenage girls.

“I don’t really care what people think. As long as I’m having fun, I’ll act a fool,” Lochte, 26, said before this meet. “Me and him live two different lifestyles. Our personalities are different. He’s a more conservative type; I’m more of an out-there, gone-wild type.”

Leveling the field

Despite Lochte’s antics, he seems to have no trouble applying himself to the hard training that Phelps has frequently shunned since Beijing. Phelps’s coach, Bob Bowman, has talked openly about his frustration with Phelps’s unwillingness to commit to a full practice schedule — or any schedule at all — in recent years.

Lochte, meantime, has worked harder than ever since he won two gold medals and two bronzes in Beijing. He said he dramatically changed his eating habits and stepped up his approach to dryland training, adding speed even after the controversial speed suits were banned. Despite a growing itch to escape the university lifestyle, he has remained in Gainesville, Fla., under his college coach, Gregg Troy, since his graduation in 2007. The isolation and routine, he said, have worked.

“There’s been times like, ‘Why am I still in this collegiate atmosphere; I gotta get out of here,’ ” Lochte said. “But I stay there because I have everything perfect. The best swim coach, the best weight-training coach. . . . Everything’s perfect.”

Lochte said he resets his mind at the end of every summer, telling himself he’s no better than anyone else and must start his climb all over again. That, he claimed, is the simple secret to his self-motivation, what’s allowed him to continue training with abandon while Phelps and others have struggled with distractions.

“I went down thinking: ‘I’m at the bottom. I have to work the whole next year getting myself back up to the top,’ ” he said. “I keep doing that to myself. Right now, [that trick] has been working since ’08. Since ’08, I’ve gotten a lot faster each year.”

Phelps has struggled since 2008 and flat-out puttered since 2009, when he had an alternately fabulous and bruising meet at the world championships in Rome, the last major event at which speed suits were allowed.

Unlike Lochte and others, Phelps is only an underdog when he is not totally fit — and even then he still strikes fear into the minds of most competitors. In his and Bowman’s minds, he hasn’t been in top-notch form since August 2008. At the 2009 world championships, Phelps lost his world title and world record in the 200 free to Germany’s Paul Biedermann as Lochte broke Phelps’s world record in the 200 medley.

Last year, as Lochte collected six gold medals at the Pan American Championships in Irvine, Phelps won five but failed to advance to the 400 medley final and pulled out of the 200 medley because of fatigue.

In April, his nine-year, 60-win streak in the 200 butterfly, his signature race, ended with a loss to China’s Wu Peng. Though he had by then grown accustomed to the occasional defeat, that one, he admitted, did not sit well. He then lost two more times in the event in the ensuing months, and he and Bowman had no trouble diagnosing the problem.

“Golf is not really good for the 200 butterfly,” Bowman said Saturday. “We can definitively say that.”

His ego shredded, Phelps vowed to put away his irons and prepare seriously for the coming eight days. During a news conference Saturday, he declared himself in much better shape than last summer.

“It does get frustrating,” Phelps had said earlier. “There are times where it’s not as easy as it once was. I know, deep down inside, there is still the fire that drove me to do what I did before. I know the fire is there to get back to where I want to be.”

When, exactly, that fire emerges is unclear. But this is for sure: If it flickers at these championships, Lochte will be ready.

“I believe in myself,” Lochte said. “That’s that competitive edge that I have. I never feel like I can lose. I always feel like I can win.”