CHARLOTTE, N.C. — So far, so good for Michael Phelps and the city of Charlotte.
Each embraced the other Friday as Phelps swam for the first time in actual competition since he won eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics last August.

Phelps did exactly what you would expect the best swimmer ever to do. He convincingly won both of his events at the Charlotte UltraSwim Friday night — the 100 butterfly and 200 freestyle — and pronounced himself “definitely ahead of schedule.”
The 1,000 or so people fortunate enough to be in the sellout crowd at the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center on Friday night cheered Phelps’ every move. Some actually had to buy tickets from scalpers — undoubtedly a first for this 25-year-old event.
Phelps, meanwhile, said he’s enjoying his time in Charlotte. “I was really happy today,” he said Friday night.
The 14-time gold medalist is apparently employing the “eat-sleep-swim-repeat” routine that has worked so well for him in the past. His first competition day in Charlotte consisted of qualifying in the morning preliminaries (despite a small rip in his swimsuit that caused him to break out in laughter on the starting blocks).
Then came lunch at Subway, a nap and two victories in two tries in the night finals. Coach Bob Bowman didn’t give Phelps a curfew after that—he never does even after the infamous picture — trusting his star swimmer to put himself in the best position to win more this weekend.
Phelps certainly did that Friday, wearing a goatee and a somewhat old-school swimsuit while breaking his own meet records (set in 2006) in both events.
Phelps first won the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:46.02, besting Peter Vanderkaay (1:46.71) in a fairly close race. Phelps broke out his new freestyle stroke — straightening his arms more to increase his tempo—in the final 10 meters of the race as he accelerated toward the wall.
Then Phelps came back out to the main pool about 45 minutes later for the 100 butterfly final as “Back in Black” blared over the speakers. He won that race more easily with a time of 51.72 seconds. That was 1.14 seconds slower than Phelps’ best time ever but more than a full second in front of everyone else.
“I’m very pleased,” Bowman said. “I think both of us are.”
Phelps had won both of Friday’s events in Beijing, too. So it was no real surprise he won them here, even after a nine-month break from real competition. This guy is Michael Phelps, after all. Like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, he always turns it on when the stakes are larger.
Now comes the interesting part, because Phelps’ last three events of the weekend at the UltraSwim are all new. He didn’t swim any of them during his 8-for-8 gold-medal binge in Beijing.
Phelps has been surprised in the past 48 hours by how intently his first meet back in competition has been covered.
“I feel like there’s more pressure here than Beijing,” he said half-jokingly. “I didn’t see this many cameras in Beijing.”
Or as Bowman said the swimmer told him after the morning preliminaries: “Are there really five cameras in my face at the Charlotte UltraSwim?”
Yes, there were. As well as reporters from France, Japan, and England asking him questions. As well as all those fans trying to snap a picture with a cell phone camera—and you know Phelps has to hate those things by now.
As Phelps said Thursday: “Wherever I go, I’m aware of everything around me. I’m always looking to see who’s around me, who’s doing what. I’m constantly screening the area.... If I’m not comfortable, I’m not staying there.”
So far in Charlotte, Phelps has seemed very comfortable.