BERLIN, GERMANY - MICHAEL Phelps admitted on Saturday he is in poor form after another disappointing performance saw him finish fifth in the men's 200m butterfly final as world records tumbled here at the shortcourse World Cup meet.

Phelps, who claimed eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, touched the wall in a time of 1 min 54.22 secs behind Russia's Nikolay Skvortsov's winning time of 1 min 51.64 secs.

Having finished third in the 100-metre medley in Stockholm's World Cup meet last week where he missed out on two other finals, Phelps swam in traditional trunks here while some of his rivals wore the modern high-tech swimsuits.

And the Olympic hero said he was bitterly disappointed at another poor performance.

'Others may want to wear the high-tech suits, but I am preparing for the future,' said Phelps with the world's governing body FINA to ban the modern swimsuits from January 1 2010. 'I am not in the form that I really want to be.'

Phelps, 24, suffered the first defeat in four years to Germany's Paul Biedermann, 23, in the 200m freestyle final at Rome's World Championships last July and the pair are set to clash here again on Sunday in the same event.

Biedermann also holds the world short course record (1:40.83) achieved in Berlin last year and received a boost ahead of his Phelps head-to-head by breaking the world record here in the men's shortcourse 400m freestyle.