I was able to watch some of the swimming from the Olympics while attending the Long Course Nationals in Savannah - GREAT meet by the way- and although I was impressed by many of the swims, I couldn't help but wonder if the trials were held too close to the Games and as a result compromised the taper of the US swimmers?
The competition at the trials was fierce. Many world records were set. Many had the swim of their lives at trials (I was lucky enough to attend several sessions). But there was only one month after trials until the games. For that elite level it seems to me that many of the swimmers would be into a four week taper following the trials. But inorder to swim their best to make the team in Long Beach, they would have had to taper for trials. Look at Brendan Hansen with two world records or come from nowhere Katie Hoff.
My understanding is that if you hit your taper you can expect (about) a 2% drop in time. Did anyone do that in Athens? My question is why do we have trials so close to the Games? Seems to me we should have had trials two or three months before the Games.
Any comments?:)
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ced357 only makes my point. The whole world of sports have known about Performances, Lactate Responses and Pre-competition Plasma Cortisol Concentrations yet so many swimmers fail to do their best times at the Olympics. The hardest thing in the world is to do your best performance on one day a year.
Yet there are athletes such as Amanda Beard who have learned to swim fast many many times a year. Mark Spitz could roll out of bed and break a world record any time he felt like it.
Swim magazine really did a great job predicting most of the winners and top three at this years Olympics.
ced357 only makes my point. The whole world of sports have known about Performances, Lactate Responses and Pre-competition Plasma Cortisol Concentrations yet so many swimmers fail to do their best times at the Olympics. The hardest thing in the world is to do your best performance on one day a year.
Yet there are athletes such as Amanda Beard who have learned to swim fast many many times a year. Mark Spitz could roll out of bed and break a world record any time he felt like it.
Swim magazine really did a great job predicting most of the winners and top three at this years Olympics.
