Olympic superstar Michael Phelps had to share the honors, finishing in a tie for first with Tom Shields in the 100m butterfly at the Santa Clara grand prix meeting.
Phelps, who came out of a near two-year retirement in April in a comeback that could take him all the way to the 2016 Rio Games, was second to Shields at the turn.
The 18-time Olympic gold medalist closed the narrow gap, and they were matched stroke-for-stroke in the final 25 meters before hitting the wall in the same time of 52.11sec.
Phelps’s evening also included a runner-up finish to Olympic champion Nathan Adrian in the 100m freestyle.
Adrian clocked a blistering 48.17sec. In an event that has never been one of his signature races, Phelps was second in 48.80 with Connor Dwyer third in 49.76.
“I’m happier about the 100 free than I am the 100 fly,” Phelps said in a post-race interview that was posted on Swimming World magazine’s website.
Phelps said he and coach Bob Bowman had hoped he would show more improvement in his 100m fly time over the 52.13 he posted at both the Mesa, Arizona, Grand Prix in April and in Charlotte last month.
In Mesa, his first meet since the London Olympics, Phelps finished runner-up to Ryan Lochte in the 100m fly, while in Charlotte the same time gave him a victory.
“Bob and I are both kind of annoyed about going 52.1 — it’s the third time we’ve done it this year,” Phelps said. “We’d like to make a bigger breakthrough.”
Although he wasn’t close to Adrian in the 100m free, Phelps found the sub-49-second time more satisfying.
Now the 100m free is another event in which he’s qualified to compete at the US championships in August, the selection meeting for the Pan Pacific championships and next year’s World Championships in Russia.
Phelps, whose glittering Olympic career included his stunning eight gold medals in eight events at Beijing in 2008, has yet to confirm he has his sights set on the 2015 worlds or the Rio Games.
But coming off of weeks of high-altitude training, the 28-year-old is showing in the third meet of his comeback that he’s ready to challenge himself.
– A pretty good day –
Friday marked the first full double-duty day — preliminaries and finals of two events — of his comeback.
Phelps narrowly qualified for the 200m freestyle final in Charlotte, but opted not to swim it on the same night he won the 100m fly there.
“With having a double like that, I’m pleased,” Phelps said. “I wanted to go under 49 and I wanted to go under 52 — I got half of that.”
Phelps is also slated to swim the 200m freestyle and 200m individual medley on the weekend.
Famed for his multiple medal challenges at the Olympics, Phelps said he didn’t know how his body would respond to Friday’s double.
“We’ll see how I’m going to feel tomorrow morning,” Phelps said. “I think it was a pretty good day.”