Olympic Swimmer Ryan Lochte's Rise to Fame

Michael Phelps may have been untouchable through the 2008 Beijing Summer season Olympics, but this time close to, Ryan Lochte is right here to give the gold medalist some stiff competition.

"I consider total, I'm just a lot older, smarter, and a superior athlete than I was going into Beijing," Lochte, 27, tells Us Weekly, who swam 4 occasions at the Video games and took property two gold ( one earned as a group) and two bronze. "I altered my diet plan and I started doing heavier weight lifting."

His training appears to currently be having to pay off ahead of the upcoming London Summer season Olympics, which kick off later this month. At the Olympic swim trials in June, Lochte defeated Phelps in the 400-meter person medley (IM) finals -- it was the same race exactly where he nabbed the bronze medal behind Phelps (gold) and Hungarian swimmer Laszlo Cseh (silver) four years ago in China.

But the 6 -foot- two chiseled champion, who holds 6 Olympic medals ( 3 gold, two silver and 1 bronze) has a remarkably laid-back mindset when it comes to beating his U.S. teammate's record and the sport of swimming.

"If I beat him, I beat him. If I don't, I never," Lochte tells Us about competing against Phelps, 27, throughout this summer's Video games. " I am not going to hold a grudge on him or anything at all."

" I am not going to give up something for it," the athlete, who has already nabbed spokesmodel gigs for Gillette and AT&T, tells Men's Journal of not letting his sport define who he is. " I am nevertheless going to be exactly who I am and have entertaining with existence. There's a great deal of swimmers out there who make swimming their existence, but for me, it's just a sport that I do."