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...
Parents
Former Member
Thorpe will "win" the public opinion forum if he can:
1) Win the 100 (still a possiblity since the qualifiers don't mean that much)
2) Beat Phelps in the 200 IM (probably a stretch but not out of the question)
3) Lead off the 800 free relay with a world record.
If he "only" wins 200/400 and Phelps wins the 100/200 fly and 200/400 im then I don't see how his Thorpe's WC performance can be considered superior to Phelps.
It's still early but right now Kitajima is the swimmer of the meet based on his 100 *** (in my book). He also has a pretty good chance to break another in the 200 ***.
Re the 1500, based on some of the reported sets that Phelps does, especially his amazing 1000 repeats, suggests that he would be in the top 5 in the 1500.
Thorpe will "win" the public opinion forum if he can:
1) Win the 100 (still a possiblity since the qualifiers don't mean that much)
2) Beat Phelps in the 200 IM (probably a stretch but not out of the question)
3) Lead off the 800 free relay with a world record.
If he "only" wins 200/400 and Phelps wins the 100/200 fly and 200/400 im then I don't see how his Thorpe's WC performance can be considered superior to Phelps.
It's still early but right now Kitajima is the swimmer of the meet based on his 100 *** (in my book). He also has a pretty good chance to break another in the 200 ***.
Re the 1500, based on some of the reported sets that Phelps does, especially his amazing 1000 repeats, suggests that he would be in the top 5 in the 1500.
