Fina Rules

Ok ... I am going to try and not fly off the hanles on this one ... First of all Peirsol did NOTHING wrong. There is NO way he should have dq'ed. The rule is a full stroke - I don't not believe it says anything about gliding. That actually would be detrimental to the swimmer. Aaron did exactly what the other seven swimmers in that final did. He was dq'ed because he defended his friend and rightfully re-instated. I think Kitajima cheated. The race came down to seconds ... tenths of seconds actually ... .17. Could a dolphin kick off the wall give you that much absolutely. So I contend that Hansen actually swam faster. I also think it's hard to tell above water whether a swimmer dolphin kicked or not. The underwater footage clearly showed Kitajima dolphin kicking off of every wall in the 100 and 200 (at least that is what I remember- don't have the tape). He won by 1.3 in the 200 - again a single dolphin kick would have given him that (let alone three or four). The other reason I contend he cheated, after all that controversy he was being watched like crazy in the medley relay and that was the only race he didn't clearly dolphin kick off of. His split was .02 ahead of Hansen's split. So maybe we would have won anyway, who knows, but that race wasn't fair. Props to Hansen for handling it in a classy way and props to Aaron for sticking up for his friend! On a lighter note, one of my teammates has a VERY BAD habit of dolphin kicking into the wall on breaststroke. My coach (to make a point) asked me if that was okay, and I said something along the lines of "it'll win you the gold in the Olympics." My coach just laughed.

Ok ... I am going to try and not fly off the hanles on this one ... First of all Peirsol did NOTHING wrong. There is NO way he should have dq'ed. The rule is a full stroke - I don't not believe it says anything about gliding. That actually would be detrimental to the swimmer. Aaron did exactly what the other seven swimmers in that final did. He was dq'ed because he defended his friend and rightfully re-instated. I think Kitajima cheated. The race came down to seconds ... tenths of seconds actually ... .17. Could a dolphin kick off the wall give you that much absolutely. So I contend that Hansen actually swam faster. I also think it's hard to tell above water whether a swimmer dolphin kicked or not. The underwater footage clearly showed Kitajima dolphin kicking off of every wall in the 100 and 200 (at least that is what I remember- don't have the tape). He won by 1.3 in the 200 - again a single dolphin kick would have given him that (let alone three or four). The other reason I contend he cheated, after all that controversy he was being watched like crazy in the medley relay and that was the only race he didn't clearly dolphin kick off of. His split was .02 ahead of Hansen's split. So maybe we would have won anyway, who knows, but that race wasn't fair. Props to Hansen for handling it in a classy way and props to Aaron for sticking up for his friend! On a lighter note, one of my teammates has a VERY BAD habit of dolphin kicking into the wall on breaststroke. My coach (to make a point) asked me if that was okay, and I said something along the lines of "it'll win you the gold in the Olympics." My coach just laughed.