Why did phelps not partcipate/qualify for 100 m Freestyle.?

Question

According to Beijing olympics official website , he is listed as the 3 fastest 100m freestylist of all time.

http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/INF/SW/C51A1/SWM011909.shtml#SWM011909

Is it because he did not want to participate in an event he is not confident of winning?

Answer 1

Michael Phelps led off the 4x100 relay with a new American record (47.51) and was just .01 seconds off the old World Record (It's since been broken three times combined by France's Alain Bernard and Australian Eamon Sullivan).

He swam this event in the heats of the US Olympic trials (and got the second fastest time) so that there would be no controversy when he was selected for the relay squad. There wasn't room in his schedule to swim this race to the best of his ability so he scratched from the finals at the Trials.

After Phelps wins his last 3 Golds in Beijing (in WR times of course) the question will be "What's he going to do for an encore in London?"

If you listened carefully in his first interview after winning the 400 IM on swimming's opening day you heard him describe a conversation with his coach before the race when discussing strategy. An excerpt of this was "I was telling my coach this would be my last 400 IM..."

Expect Michael to go for 9+ in London with a different program. Removing the 400 IM will open up his program for a couple other swims. Remember he's been a National champion in the 100 Free, 400 Free, 100 Back, and 200 Back (all of which are not in his Olympic program) and once held the World Record  in the 200 back. He's beaten the worlds best swimmers in all four of these events.

So, to address your comment about not being confident of winning these: no, that's not the reason. Michael Phelps would accept the challenge. That's why he entered the 200 Freestyle at the Athens games. He wanted to challenge himself against the best in the world. At the time that was Ian Thorpe and Pieter Van den hoogenband.

Hope this helps....

Answer 2

probably cause he was tired

Answer 3

well it is definitley not one of his best events and he had to pick and choose which ones he thought he had the best chance at gettting the gold.