Swimming Finals at the World Championships in Barcelona, Spain
Former Member
The finals of the first day, show:
.) in the men 400 meter free final, Thorpe (Aus.) went 3:42.58 for #1, Hackett (Aus.) went 3:45.17 for #2, and Coman (Rom.) went 3:46.8x for #3;
Coman -who is my fellow countryman, and I was telling you about him for years-, defeated Rossolini (Ita.) of the 2000 Olympics fame, Keller (U.S.) and Carvin (U.S.);
.) in the women 400 meter free final, Simona Paduraru (Rom.) finished #7, with a fast time;
.) in the 4x100 men free relay, Russia won;
the fastest split was by Frenchman Frederic Bousquet at 47.03 -which is the second fastest split in history-, and fast splits (in the 47s) were recorded by Alex. Popov (Rus.) and Jason Lezak (U.S.);
.) in the 4x100 women free relay, U.S. won, anchored by an ace 53.xx from Jenny Thompson (U.S.).
He! he! he! :D ho! ho! ho!
I post this, ahead of www.swiminfo.com and www.swimnews.com who are sandbagging...
Originally posted by Matt S
Some people here are looking to pounce on you for any reason or no reason.
Hey Matt, I can't speak for anyone else, but I think Ion did give a reason for people to pounce on him. :D He brought up a very good point about how remarkable Popov's longevity is. But then he decided to put Biondi down by calling him a "flash in the pan".
If a three-time Olympian like Biondi is a "flash", then Ion is setting an unreasonable standard that almost every swimmer would fail (except for a handful like Popov and Jenny Thompson). I can understand why Ion might feel disappointed that Biondi turned away from swimming after '92, but you don't have to trash Biondi to celebrate the greatness of Popov.
As for why he retired... I turned to the web, source of indisputable truth. ;) After Seoul, Biondi switched to water polo and made the national team. About a year later, he decided that he had just enough in the tank to switch back and try one more Olympics.
Originally posted by Matt S
Some people here are looking to pounce on you for any reason or no reason.
Hey Matt, I can't speak for anyone else, but I think Ion did give a reason for people to pounce on him. :D He brought up a very good point about how remarkable Popov's longevity is. But then he decided to put Biondi down by calling him a "flash in the pan".
If a three-time Olympian like Biondi is a "flash", then Ion is setting an unreasonable standard that almost every swimmer would fail (except for a handful like Popov and Jenny Thompson). I can understand why Ion might feel disappointed that Biondi turned away from swimming after '92, but you don't have to trash Biondi to celebrate the greatness of Popov.
As for why he retired... I turned to the web, source of indisputable truth. ;) After Seoul, Biondi switched to water polo and made the national team. About a year later, he decided that he had just enough in the tank to switch back and try one more Olympics.
