Michael Phelps 2011 can't catch Michael Phelps 2007

That’s “near,” though, not “at.” With the World Aquatics Championships winding down in Shanghai, it’s still fair to call Phelps’ tally Phelpsian. Here are the results so far:

200 m free: 1:44.79 (good for silver, behind teammate Ryan Lochte’s 1:44.44)
100 m butterfly: 50.71 (gold)
200 m butterfly: 1:53:34 (gold)
200 m IM: 1:54.16 (silver, behind Lochte’s world record 1:54:00)
Plus a bronze in the 4×100 m free relay (3:11.96) and gold in the 4×200 m free relay (7:02.67, which Lochte anchored).

If history is worth anything, this excellent but multi-hued medal count is probably an indicator of what to expect from Aquaman in the Olympics next year. Have a gander at Phelps’ times, all gold, in the 2007 world championships, which presaged his eight-for-eight gold medal raid in the 2008 Olympics. Here was Phelps in ’07:

200 m free: 1:43.86 (a world record)
100 m butterfly: 50.77
200 m butterfly: 1:52.09 (world record)
200 m IM: 1:54.98 (world record)
400 m IM: 4:06.22 (world record)
And then golds in the 4×100 m free relay (3:12.72) and in the 4×200 m free relay (7:03.24, yet another world record).

Of note: It happens constantly, but still it’s amazing to see the times fall. That 2007 gold in the 4×100 m free relay wouldn’t even have medaled this year. Lochte’s world record in the 200 m IM is nearly a full second faster than ’07 Phelps’ record. And so on.

Looking back at the ’07 championships, you remember why that gargantuan pre-Olympics hype machine seemed justified. After his ’04 Olympics and this bonanza, it was inevitable that Phelps would be the American face of the Beijing games. Then he won eight gold medals (oh, but barely, juuuuuust barely). Eight gold medals — such a thing may never happen again, and it would be ludicrous to hold Phelps to that as a standard, any more than we should expect Quentin Tarantino ever to top “Pulp Fiction” or for Ohio State to soon top its instant-classic tattoos-for-touchdowns scandal.

When someone years down the road told Joseph Heller that he had never written another book as good as Catch-22, the author apparently replied, “Who has?” Predicting mere mortality for Phelps feels like being that jerk on the street. Phelps may say he can be faster, and that’s surely true. But the past week of swimming has put us on notice that he won’t catch ’08 Phelps. Who could?