THE BEST OF 2009: Michael Phelps

"THE greatness comes and you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain." - Richard Nixon

I'M THE MAN: Michael Phelps strikes 100m butterfly gold at the World Swimming Championships in Rome earlier this year (Getty Images)

I'm not sure whether Michael Phelps studied Tricky Dicky in his high school civics class - he is the first to admit he wasn't the most diligent student - but he can certainly empathise with the sentiment above.

In a year of dizzying contrasts, it's fair to say that his 2009 did not get off to the best of starts.

Pictured by a British tabloid newspaper smoking a bong - the smouldering contents of which remain disputed - he served a three-month US Swimming suspension for bringing the sport into disrepute.

And then he saw some of his high-profile and scandal adverse sponsors go snap, crackle and pop.

While his character didn't sustain the crippling XXX-rated blow felt by fellow all-American hero Tiger Woods later in the year, Phelps too talked of quitting.

However, as the blazing Roman sunshine slowly sunk over the Foro Italico, the most medaled Olympian of all-time restored himself to the highest plinth in the pantheon of his sport's legends.

His medal count from this summer's FINA World Championships - five golds and one silver - hardly contrasts with his eight wins one year earlier in Beijing.

But few of those triumphs will mean as much as his 100m butterfly gold, captured on the first day of August this year.

In Beijing he had beaten Serbian Milorad Cavic over the distance by smallest fraction possible - 1000th of a second.

One year on - and after finally showing his fallibility, losing his first race in four years to Germany's Paul Biedermann in the 200m freestyle - and questions were being asked.

Cavic, still brooding from his Water Cube woe, had fuelled the fires with some pre-race fighting talk - and then set a 51.01 second world record in qualifying to underline his menacing intent.

But cometh the hour...

At the turn Phelps wasn't even in the medals, with 30 metres to go he was a full body length down on a seemingly fast-finishing Cavic.

But like a paddle ship shifting into full steam, Phelps's two-metre arm span whirled like a rotor, overhauling an improbable deficit for a memorable victory.

And for good measure, he snatched back the world record from the chastened Cavic and broke another of his sport's barriers - touching home in 49.82 seconds. It was a moment of blessed respite from the super-suit headlines that dogged the championships.

Usain Bolt's chest-thumbing 100m victory had me bewildered in Beijing but Phelps even trumped that, to leave me reeling in Rome. 

If there had been a roof at the Foro Italico, rocking to the teeny pop of the sadly catchy Miley Cyrus, it would have been blown clean off that evening.

REM were right what they said about Nightswimming - but this sporting feat produced anything but a quiet night.