Phelps ready to return to action

Phelps took his personal tally to 14 Olympic gold medals in Beijing

American swimming sensation Michael Phelps is set to compete in his first race since winning a record eight gold medals at last year's Beijing Olympics.

Phelps, 23, was banned for three months in February by US Swimming after photographs were published appearing to show him smoking cannabis.

The ban ended on Tuesday and Phelps will return to competitive action at next week's meeting in Carolina.

"I'm getting back into racing shape and we'll see how it goes," Phelps said.

In Beijing, Phelps broke fellow swimmer Mark Spitz's 36-year-old record of winning seven gold medals at one Games, taking his personal tally to 14 - five more than anyone else has achieved.

At the meet in Charlotte, Phelps is only competing in two of the races he won in Beijing, the 200m freestyle and 200m butterfly, as he carries out his promise to target other events in the run-up to London 2012.

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"I'm feeling good in the water and swimming some decent times in practice," he said ahead of taking on the 200m backstroke, 200m butterfly, 50m, 100m and 200m freestyle.

"But I have no idea what to expect in the meet. I'm going in open-minded."

Phelps considered quitting after the publication of the picture which ended up leading to his ban.

It appeared in Britain's News of the World newspaper and was said to have been taken at a student party last November when he was on a long break from training.

"There were days I would just come and warm up and say, 'I'm not feeling it.' I would just go home," he said.

But then he asked himself: "What am I doing even thinking about quitting?" I'm 23 years old. I'm not retiring at 23. I have four more years to my career. I still have things I want to accomplish."