Maybe we are seeing a resurgence of swimming in the Midwest. It seems that colleges & universities in the midwest are once again producing some pretty good swimmers.
Originally posted by Howard
Hope it isn't "if they can pull that off".
Agreed. That seems like a lot of work, but if they are gonna do what justforfun says their going to do, they can definately pull it out. They obviously have a passion for making this a hugely sucessful event.
I also agree with Heather. When I saw those pics, I looked at them and thought how cool it would be to have a permanent pool in a venue like that. Inside a huge stadium with the capacity to hold all those people. Wouldn't it be great if we could see our sport elevated to that level? Wow!
I'm hoping, as are other "swimming people" in Omaha, that having the Trials here will be a huge boost to swimming participation in our state. We took a big hit, especially among the boys, when the University in Lincoln dropped men's swimming. It's helped that we had our first U.S. swimming Olympian, Scott Usher, in 2004--he's been a nice role model.
Some of us have discussed our pie-in-the-sky vision of using one of the temporary pools for a nice permanent indoor facility. Maybe Mutual of Omaha, a big USA Swimming sponsor, will help make it happen.
I remember when I was swimming the 100 back at a meet in Sydney and I pushed off the wall and saw my split. I instantly freaked out when I found out that I would be on pace to break a minute.
Taking a quick glance at the clock if it's in your view doesn't slow you down immensely, if at all. But with the monitor being in the middle of the pool I wonder if they'll know what their pace should be at the halfway mark.
They have jumbo trons at every major sporting event now. I doubt any athlete is distracted by them anymore. I think they had them at both trials and the Olympics last year.
I wonder if you'd even be able to focus on an image? I mean you're going to be focusing on your form, your race, your going to be moving at a pretty decent pace, and that thing is pretty far up there. I would think it'd be more a distraction in the sense that you're only going to see smudges of color moving around quickly. It could be that they are to busy following the rafters to stay straight, that they don't even notice the board there. ;)
I'm doubting any of the elite backstrokers are going to go wow I look good and admire themselves ... that would be hysterical though ... most backstrokers and IMmers do glance at the jumbo trons to see their pace ... I know Peirsol, Phelps, and Coughlin have all said that coming out of that turn they could see they were on such and such a pace ...
