Why didn't Michael Phelps compete in 100 m freestyle?

Question

Is the style that he thinks he can't win?...

Answer 1

There are some things he excels in and I'm sure there are some things he doesn't...

Answer 2

He's not the fastest swimmer in the world. I believe he wasn't in the 50m freestyle either.

Men's 50m freestyle final:

1 Cesar Cielo Filho (Brz) 21.30secs Gold OR

2 Amaury Leveaux (Fra) 21.45 Silver

3 Alain Bernard (Fra) 21.49 Bronze

Answer 3

From what I have noticed, Phelps tends to do better and exceeds everybody else in swimming in the longer distance events like 200m, 400m, etc.  But keep in mind that he had to swim every single day for various swimming events in that entire week (sometimes 2 events in one day.) and there were other swimmers who were specifically trained just for one particular event.  One example would be that individual 100m Butterfly event where he won his seventh gold competing against Cavic representing Serbia.  Cavic had only ONE event at the Beijing Olympics which was that one.  So he was trained specifically just for that event.  He just won by .01 sec.  Man, Phelps rocks.  Though my point is swimming in almost every competition was very very hard on his body.  Imagine how tired you would be to have that kind of schedule.  He probably left that one out because it was too much for him and I also think he's more of a high endurance type of swimmer.  He's a good sprinter too but maybe he figured there were other people who had been specifically trained just for sprinting at that one particular event so it's not worth it to compete considering his very tight schedule.  That's just my thought.  Anyway, he was so exciting though.  He made the Olympics so fun to watch.