2012 2011 USA Swimming Grand Prix Meets

Lochte finished strong, with a 1:57 200 IM. 15 year old Katie Ledecky dropped to 8:25 in the 800 free! www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../30520.asp He did great in the 200 IM! Team Lochte!

Santa Clara Grand Prix results: www.fastlanetek.com/.../

I just got back from the finals this evening. With Phelps not here, the stands were noticeably emptier than they were last year. I remember last year the stands were packed so full the fire department was on hand just in case. It is a Friday night, though, so maybe it'll be better tomorrow and Sunday.

Impressive swims at: 2012 SANTA CLARA INTERNATIONAL GRAND PRIX May 31 - June 3 Longhorn Aquatics Elite Invite June 1 - 3, 2012 Meet Results Senior Circuit IV LC Meet Mansfield ISD Natatorium June 7 - 10 Olympic Trials June 25 - July 2 btw Have you ever seen this vid? you might enjoy it watch lane 7 (2nd from the bottom of the screen) Men 50 Meters Backstroke (final A) Texas Circuit #3, Austin Hook Em

There were some great swims both in Austin and Santa Clara, but I find myself questioning the wisdom of splitting our best swimmers between two meets in the final runup to trials. Just playing devil's advocate here, but maybe the big name swimmers don't want to swim head-to-head so close to Trials, so giving them different tune-up venues keeps them happy. Skip

There were some great swims both in Austin and Santa Clara, but I find myself questioning the wisdom of splitting our best swimmers between two meets in the final runup to trials. Especially with the foreign stalwarts who showed up in Santa Clara. Duel IN the pool makes sense; duel OUTSIDE the pool (by meet organizers) doesn't seem to make much sense for the swimmers. As an example, our freestylers should be facing Park Tae-Hwan every chance they get. His 400fr time in Santa Clara was over six seconds faster than the Austin winner. His 200fr victory was more than three seconds faster. In fact, the winner of the M200fr in Austin would have placed something like seventh in the Santa Clara final. Breaststrokers should also never miss an opportunity to face down Kitajima, especially right before the Olympics. Even Phelps' 200fl time was bested by Matsuda in Santa Clara (although I think his time got DQ'd later for some reason). Great swims in both meets, but USA-S should get their arms around this one. Don't think it really matters, Santa Clara GP & Austin Elite Invite were just tune ups for trials. Some swimmers didn't want to travel to Cali or swim in an outdoor pool. You can bet your britches there's going to be some very fast practice swims as those going to trials fine tune, taper, & prepare to race. Our best swimmers can watch race vids of Great swimmers like Park, Sun Yang, & Kitajima. They can do race and split analysis to know what to expect. Like Park has a tremedous kick, he's likely to even split his 200 & 400 and has the ability to go 53 on his last 100 in his 4 fr & maybe 52 on his 2nd 100 of his 2. The work and ability development needed to be done months ago. Now it's time for USA OT qualifiers to get ready to rumble at TRIALS Days Till Then those fortunate qualifiers will get ready to really rumble at the Games

Great swims in both meets, but USA-S should get their arms around this one. www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/.../30722.asp 0h n0es! There's a THIRD elite meet going on, and Batman doesn't return for another month! Who will save us?

There were some great swims both in Austin and Santa Clara, but I find myself questioning the wisdom of splitting our best swimmers between two meets in the final runup to trials. Especially with the foreign stalwarts who showed up in Santa Clara. Duel IN the pool makes sense; duel OUTSIDE the pool (by meet organizers) doesn't seem to make much sense for the swimmers. As an example, our freestylers should be facing Park Tae-Hwan every chance they get. His 400fr time in Santa Clara was over six seconds faster than the Austin winner. His 200fr victory was more than three seconds faster. In fact, the winner of the M200fr in Austin would have placed something like seventh in the Santa Clara final. Breaststrokers should also never miss an opportunity to face down Kitajima, especially right before the Olympics. Even Phelps' 200fl time was bested by Matsuda in Santa Clara (although I think his time got DQ'd later for some reason). Great swims in both meets, but USA-S should get their arms around this one.

There were 163 swimmers in the women's 100M free prelims in Santa Clara. Unless you need to get a bit of experience on how to swim well in the middle of that mass of humanity, I can understand wanting to do a tune-up meet where you had maybe four prelims heats of each event instead of as many as 17-18 heats.

:wave: Hi there, WBL! Welcome back to the forums! Please give my best to Laura/Y/Z! :D