Naturally he sees the funny side of it, he has always been supremely aware of how transient fame is. So now, having expected a long drumroll as he highwires it and goes for his third pair of sprint titles in three Olympics, he finds himself relegated to the small print columns for these Olympics. He's a story that everyone intends to get around to.
It's not about Alexander Popov anymore though. The name which was once synonymous with the magic of sprint racing appears down the bill this week.
The production suddenly has other stars: Pieter van den Hoogenbrand and Michael Klim star in, an IOC production - The 100 Metres Freestyle Final - If you only watch 30 seconds of swimming this year, let this be it.
Popov is suddenly the polite European, a cameo role rather than anything integral to the plot. Death comes quickly in swimming. Popov always knew he was mortal, always tipped us the wink.
"If you can win one Olympics you become famous. If you win two Olympics you become great and if you win three you become history," he once said. Younger swimmers may have made him history regardless of how he swims tonight.
He's been winding the press up for quite some time now about his own decrepitude. He mused at length last year about what a nice colour silver was and how he'd had enough of gold and might start striving for silver. "It's not every day you can get silver after all. I've had enough of racing for gold." Finishing third in the heats this week he found the experience "interesting, but hard".
Only a fool would write the Russian off however. Popov will be 29 in November and already he enjoys speaking like the old man of the sea.
"They seem to be going in progression," he says of the Games. "Atlanta was harder than Barcelona and Sydney will be harder than Atlanta. I'm not 21 or 24 anymore. Maybe you are a bit more experienced, but there are other guys in the field who are pretty fast and they are young and hungry and you are a sort of lazy cat who sits in the chair and asks `what am I here for?'."
He might certainly feel that way when he samples the hunger and determination of young van den Hoogenbrand. Last year at the European championship the first Popov knew of mortality was when he found himself beaten twice by the Dutch kid. It was the first time he had experience defeat in a major race for over eight years.
Things haven't got much better. This last week he has seen his long standing 100 metres freestyle record broken by Klim and then shattered by van den Hoogenbrand. Popov lives and trains these days in Canberra. He moved there seven years ago after his coach Gennadi Touretski accepted a job at the AIS. Popov had been born and raised in Moscow, but his friendship with Touretski left him with no choice but to fly south after his coach.
Remarkably, Popov, who is revered here in Australia, still pays $100 a day for the privilege of training in the Canberra pool.
On a typical day Popov works out and trains with his friend and rival Michael Klim, but recently has been training alone as Touretski took the Australian swim team off to pre-Olympic camp.
"It has happened lots of times in my career. Gennadi has a job to do with Australia. We speak on the phone. I know what I have to do.
"On the way to the Olympics, sometimes you have to hold back in order to make a step forward. We tried to do some things differently this year, but they didn't seem to work. We have other things to try for next season, In any case I don't expect to swim 48:40 to win this year."
Popov says he is lucky to just be here, lucky even if he pays $100 a day just to train with his friend. In 1996, not long after the Atlanta Games, he was in a Moscow street buying a watermelon from a street vendor when he was attacked and stabbed.
The knife sliced an artery, nicked one of his kidneys and damaged the membrane that protects the lungs. He was fortunate to survive, needing emergency surgery and three months of rehab.
Not long after his recovery, he made a veiled but pointed attack on Michelle de Bruin. While launching a video of the training methods he had devised with his long time coach Touretski he said: "I believe we should share knowledge and training, if you go around hiding and training in secret its no wonder that people will call you cheat."
He returned to big-time action in 1998 and retained the world titles in both the 100 and 50 metres free.
That return to form was typical of his resilience. This year he has been hindered slightly with injury. In January he had arthroscopic surgery on his knee, yet in June Popov broke Tom Jager's 10-year-old 50-metres free world record.
Tonight is the biggest test of his career. He speaks obliquely about the prospect of finishing his career with a hat-trick of 50 and 100 metre wins.
"I was very happy to win in Barcelona and to win again in Atlanta, but I would be lying if I said it was my plan to win four gold medals."
You'll know Popov by the way. On the blocks he'll be the only one wearing the old fashioned swimming trunks. He's tried the new-fangled body suits. Doesn't like them. His own man till the end.
