Michael Phelps drops out of Olympic 200-meter freestyle Michael Phelps, who won a record eight gold medals in 2008, cut his London event schedule to seven on Monday. Bob Bowman, the coach for Phelps, said there would be no regrets about skipping out on the chance for an encore. "No one should be expected to do that twice," Bowman said. Phelps declared before the U.S. Olympic trials that he would not repeat his Beijing effort. He qualified for eight events anyway - apparently to assess his progress in all of them - but said he had no second thoughts about withdrawing from one. "It's so much smarter for me to do that," Phelps told the Associated Press. We're not trying to re-create what happened in Beijing. It just makes sense. Bowman said he and Phelps had discussed dropping one event last week and finalized the decision Sunday night. USA Swimming set a Monday deadline for swimmers to scratch from any Olympic event for which they had qualified, and Phelps dropped out of the 200 freestyle. The three relays were not contested at the trials, so five events here would have translated to eight in London, within the same eight-day span. Phelps still can set the records for most overall medals by any Olympian - he needs to win three - and extend his record for most gold medals. But Bowman conceded the pressure to repeat the perfect program from Beijing played a role in the decision not to try again. "Yes," Bowman said, "We won't hear the number eight again after this press conference." Phelps, 27, and the man who rose up as his foil over the last four years, Ryan Lochte, are both eligible to swim seven events in London. Berens had not qualified to swim any individual events there. He had no advance notice of Phelps' withdrawal, according to his Twitter feed. "Best Monday EVER!!!" he tweeted.