His coach Bob Bowman did not mince words after his amphibious freak of nature lost to relative unknown Paul Biedermann, who was wearing the Arena X-Glide body suit, in the 200m freestyle Tuesday.
Bowman said: 'I'm done with this. The sport is in shambles and Fina better do something or they're going to lose their guy (Phelps) who fills these seats.
'That would be my recommendation to him, to not swim internationally.' Phelps added: 'Bob chooses where I swim.'
Fina will ban the high-tech swimsuits. But only from next year, and even then no sooner than May. Until then, records will fall like rain and the debate will rage - was it the man or the suit that won?
Phelps' world-record time was smashed by 0.96sec by Biedermann, who finished in 1min 42sec. In Beijing, the German ended fifth in 1:46.00.
'We've lost all the history of the sport,' Bowman said. 'Does a 10-year-old boy want to break Biedermann's record? Is that going to make him join swimming?
'It took Michael from 2003 to 2008 to go from 1:46 to 1:42.9 and this guy's done it in 11 months. That's an amazing training programme.'
The new generation suits work on the same principles as aerodynamics. Just like reducing drag helps planes fly faster, reducing body drag helps humans swim faster. Studies show that skin friction amounts to almost one-third of the total force restraining a swimmer in the water. Companies such as Arena have spent enormous sums researching which fabrics and weaves drag the least.
The X-Glide is a 100 per cent polyurethane body glove, so hard to slip on that the wearer needs plastics bags on his or her feet and their hands just to slide it on. It is so skintight it actually traps air, which also makes a swimmer buoyant. The LZR is a technological artifact compared to today's fully rubberised suits. And thus a Biedermann can shoot past a 14-time gold medallist such as Phelps.
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