Michael Phelps is focused, ready in Rome

ROME (AP) — Michael Phelps stumbled through his answer, struggling to put the words together, and finally offered up an apology.

“I’m kind of out of it right now,” he said Friday, sitting in a marble-adorned Italian hall erected by Il Duce himself. “I just woke up from a nap. Sorry about that.”

I guess we can cut Phelps some slack.

After all, it’s been a mighty busy year. He became the winningest Olympian ever, popped up on one TV show after another, pumped out another book, was the subject of a most embarrassing picture, anguished over whether he even wanted to keep swimming, and finally decided it was time to jump back in the pool.

Now, racing only himself and his place in history, Phelps is at the world championships, a meet that will serve as the jumping-off point for the final lap of his career.

“It’s been a long year,” Phelps said Friday, sporting that scraggly semblance of a beard he always attempts to grow before a meet. “I’ve had a lot of really, really high points, and a lot of low points. It’s been a learning year both in and out of the pool. It’s been a difficult journey.”

This is where he’s most comfortable, of course, setting goals at the pool and seeing if he can meet them all by the time he calls it a career after the 2012 London Olympics.