RE: Yeah, but will he wear the star-spangled robe?

Frank Thompson — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 07:33:12 GMT

Gary will have to break Sabir Muhammad 50 Free and 100 Free records from last years 2004 SC Nationals when he broke the 14 year old records by Rob Peel. Gary was next to Sabir and it was exciting to watch. I do remember the 100 IM and seeing him get a DQ for the turn. I think when Sabir, Gary, and the rest of the Race Club was up on the blocks at Nationals the whole meet stopped including the other competiton pool just to watch these guys race. I have never seen that at a USMS Nationals before. Perhaps the Race Club will bring the same excitement to Mission Viejo. I was reading some discussion some place in the last year as to why Gary Hall wears Everlast robes and boxing trunks which I believe is one of his sponsors. I had read that he will not where Speedo products because he was let go out of his contract when he was busted for a drug test and they found he smoked pot. A discussion was made that he made a mistake and that he paid his dues by getting a suspension from swimming for some specified time period. That he did nothing different than Michael Phelps did last November, yet Speedo did not drop him. Both swimmers paid the penalties for there wrongdoing. I don't know if its image or marketability or both but maybe that's the difference between the two cases. This brings up an interesting point in that some swimmers have been paid to where the sponsors products and others are forced to where that sponsor, even though they might have another sponsor. Ian Thorpe had a problem with this when he refused to wear the team Speedo suits that Australia was wearing in International competitions. Supposedly they let him wear the Addias suit without imposing a penalty. I don't know what the solution to this is because I am sure each country does not want to have many different sponsors for every bit of product the National Team has to have.