Michael Phelps is Back Where He Belongs: Olympic Bound

Michael Phelps was pulling himself from monkey bar to monkey bar in a gym alongside Baltimore's Inner Harbor while some two dozen photographers and video crews filmed him. The whole thing was a made-for-camera moment: a chance to watch the country's greatest Olympian go through a workout as he prepares for his final games. The only authenticity to be found in the place came from Phelps, who was, in fact, exerting himself as he strained to move down the line.

This has also been Phelps' life for nearly two decades now. For half of it, he has been an athlete in the spotlight. Phelps debuted in the Sydney Olympics as a 15-year-old; that was 16 years ago. He has been heralded and derided in the public sphere. He's a wunderkind swimmer who grew up into a flawed and extremely successful man. This stratospheric weirdness—the monkey bars and the cameras and the knowledge that he may well be the best at what he does of anyone who has ever lived—is his life.

"It's the last goodbye, I swear. I have no regrets, for the past is behind me. Tomorrow reminds me just where."

Five months before he will land in Rio de Janeiro, Phelps is in the Under Armour headquarters in his hometown for the rollout of the apparel company's latest ad campaign for him heading into those Olympic Games. Those lines above, which open his latest Under Armour commercial, are supposed to encapsulate it all for Phelps. Within hours, the ad itself had already gone viral. Two days after its debut, it has more than two million views on YouTube.

Yet, it feels less like the beginning of an official goodbye tour for Phelps and more like his latest re-branding effort: Phelps 4.0. There was the teenager who broke through in 2000, the superstar who won eight gold medals in Beijing in 2008, and the Phelps who arrived in London four years later just hoping to sustain some success before retirement—and then went on to win three more gold medals.

This time around, Phelps portrays himself as a changed man. He is 30 now, with a fiancee and a child on the way. He has weathered his own personal storms and learned some things about both the benefits of the media glorification machine and the costs—especially following his public mistakes.

"I've learned to accept it," Phelps tells VICE Sports. "For me to do what I wanted to do, that came along with it and it was a price to pay. For me, wanting to do something that nobody else has ever done in Olympic history it's the kind of price you've got to go through. I wouldn't change anything that's ever happened in my life. I'm just happy to still be alive and still be safe through everything."

Phelps says this as he sits in a conference room on the top floor of the UA headquarters. By 2 o'clock, he looks tired and fatigued. It has been a long day already, with countless media interviews and a flight to Los Angeles still coming. By now, he says, there is no question he hasn't been asked and nothing he hasn't answered. To make his point, he shouts to a friend sitting in the room and asks him to ballpark all the interviews he's done over his career.

"What would you say the over/under would be for interviews? Lifetime? Fifteen years, you'd say, ten grand? Fifteen grand? Twenty grand? Fifty grand?"

At any rate, it's a lot. This is another one. This is his life. "I'm an open book to an extent," Phelps says. "Y'all pretty much know everything, but we keep some things to ourselves."

This seems nearly true. Phelps has been lionized for his swimming triumphs, but opened up, at times, about his legal troubles too. Eighteen month ago, he was arrested in Baltimore for driving under the influence for the second time in his life. The arrest was public. The tailspin and the awakening it sent him into weren't—until they became the subject of a Sports Illustrated article this fall.

Phelps spent 45 days at a treatment facility, according to SI, and found his desire to swim again. Now, Phelps insists he has a renewed vigor for the sport, which is a sea change from his commitment heading into the 2012 Olympics. "It was a joke going into London," he chuckles.

A friend challenged him to enter these Olympics at his maximum capacity and to be fully prepared. Phelps admits he has not been for a while. It frustrates him that he hasn't set a personal mark since 2009. "It's really weird to say this," he says. "But I don't know [that], besides 2000, I gave 100 percent." This time, he is putting in the work.

His training, Phelps says, reflects that work. His body has changed and become more lithe. He entered London with 13 percent body fat and is down to five percent right now. He enjoys swimming more than he has in while. "I love what I do again," Phelps said. "It's been a long time since I could actually say that and mean it. Right now I do feel like a kid again, and that's when I was at my absolute best in the pool. And I enjoy going to workouts and I enjoy going to meets. I guess it's kind of like I'm the old dude, but when we're in training, when I see like an opportunity to help somebody or break somebody—just mentally destroy them—I love it. I'm like a shark smelling blood in the water. Any new kid that comes in, if he runs his mouth or does something, I will find a way to mentally just snap him in half."

This last part seems to bring him a special joy. To take his training partners and turn them into mental chum.

Sure, Phelps hopes that all the swimmers he's training with can also make the Olympic team along with him. But he also revels in destroying them along the way. He last did that to someone two weeks ago and smiles about it like he's still riding the high.

If nothing else, Phelps will head into these Olympics, his last, with the zeal for the sport that made him a star. "I love it," he said. "I enjoy it. I'm a competitor in the pool. I haven't had that feeling since '08. So I think that's something, that side of me, is cool to be back. And, yeah, it's really fun. It sounds so bad but it's so fun."