Just a little more than 30 days before the "Duel in the Pool". This is one of the most creative and exciting meet formats that USA Swimming has come up with yet. It's the US vs Australia. It's a duel meet format. The best men and women swimmers from each team compete in a limited number of events, head-to-head for bragging rights of the best swimming team in the world.
For more information check out: www.usaswimming.org/.../Duel.htm
If the teams are tied then the outcome is decided by a mixed 200 medley relay.
Predictions anyone?
Australia has Thorpe but we have Phelps and Coughlin. Australia has edge in men's freestyle events but we more depth in the strokes. I'm rooting for a close meet because it would be very exciting to see a tie-breaker medley relay BUT US should win it without the relay (why don't they swim it anyway?) .
Whole meet should take three hours or less, is scheduled for Sunday April 6th in Indy and will be broadcast the following week on network TV.
That would be more than a shame. In the recent edition of Splash, US Swimming talks about how difficult it was to schedule this meet. It's pretty obvious that if cancelled for April 6th then it will be nearly impossible to get it re-scheduled this year and next year everyone will be focused on the Olympics.
Let's hope this event goes off as planned for all the reasons.
There could be trouble in the pool. The near-certainty of a war with Iraq in the coming days may be putting into doubt whether the Duel in the Pool will happen.
espn.go.com/.../1524855.html
I notice that there are alot of elite swimmers who having severe shoulder problems. Maybe, they should have more breastroke in workouts to avoid so much free, or fly, or back. Or maybe doing high milegage in swimming just takes its toll if its done over a number of years. Women swimmers 30 years ago quit at age 19 or 20 and many of them are staying into their 20's now, I'm talking about of course about non-master's swimming.
Well we've lost some of the Aussies to the SCARED virus as reported by www.swinfo.com on 4/1 but it looks like we'll see some fast swimming anyway. Phelps just proved that he's a force in just about every stroke at every distance and Moses should prove to be a very entertaining swimmer and may even fulfill Wayne's prediction if he can learn how to control himself in the first half of his races. (Why not save it for Sunday Ed and earn that $50,000?)
Will the coaches put Phelps in the 200 and see if he can beat Hackett head-to-head? Will Peirsol's 1:39 200 SCY back translate into a 1:54 or even 1:53 200 back?
Doesn't Thorpe now look vulnerable given his current "virus-stricken" state?
I bet there be some pretty interesting talk along these, and other lines, in Indianiapolis this Sunday morning.
Any predictions of great performances out there?
The meet was so under-publicized that I actually forgot about it until someone was talking about it at workout last night. From the results, calling it a "Duel" was, well, not quite correct.
-Rick
We saw some great swimming yesterday. Great atmosphere too with lots of very charged kids cheering on their favorite swimmers. Only thing missing was a close dual meet since the Aussie team was missing some of their stars (they still would have lost).
Pretty tough performances by the college women who had to swim 2+ weeks plus after their taper. The men had a similar problem but had the advantage of being one week closer to their taper.
Phelps performance was, as reported, awesome--especially in the 200 fly. He was clearly tired after 400 IM and 100 fly and was racing against a fresh Malchow. Behind by a lot at the 150 he managed to catch up with a tremendous finish. He's mentally just as tough as he is physically.
Also his stroke was pretty interesting. Flattest butterfly I've seen since Pankrotov (spelling?). He hardly moves his head and it appears as if his head is immobile and his body rotates around it (that's probably impossible). He defintely doesn't look "down" in the non-breathing stroke and doesn't look "up" in the breathing stroke. His head also appeared absolutely motionless in the backstroke (more so, then Lenny K or Peirsol).
Natalie Coughin was not in top form and it showed in the 400 free relay but her 100 back, with little rest from the relay, was pretty impressive. Especially, her kick off the turn.
Moses actually held back in the first 100 of his 200 and looked great (and said he felt great) at the finish. He'll break those world records at worlds if he follow that kind of race plan.
Things look pretty good for the US next year.
This will be broadcast next week on NBC so check your local listings.
Anyone else see this meet out there?
Well, there was a world record and our men team looks good and we have a lot of women strength too. I think we will end up with more gold in Athens than we have in a long time. And the first meet in Athens in 1896, we had one swimmer according to the TV story, didn't want to swim because it was too cold in the lake. The Aussie's had some injuries and some sickness and wanted to safe themselves.
