I noticed that when it comes to the worlds mainly Phelps and Hanson are mention. There are other good swimmers out there. No one here talk about the 17 year old girl Kate Ziegler winning the 1500. There are other good swims in worlds but the group seems to have a narrow focus. One reason I stop writing as much on these boards.
I think that the whole US media is really weak on Worlds coverage. The papers seemed to be doing a good job except the NYPost. There is not one mention on Sportcenter or ESPNews which is downright ignorant. But, in every other country, it seems to be the top sports today.
Since the University of Arizona has four current or former swimmers in the meet, we have some pretty good newspaper play.
I would imagine Austin, the Bay Area, Southern California and Balitmore are other places to get full swimming coverage.
There wasn't much coverage from the local Philly stations since Brendan Hansen is from Philly. The news director took a whole day to say that Hansen won the 100 ***. He could reported it on the 11 pm news the night Hansen won. Maybe they will do that the night he wins the 200 ***.
Cynthia, I think your analysis of worlds talk is premature.
The first day and a half, the talk was all about Phelps and Hansen, true. But I've seen online stories lead with Jessica Hardy's performance and Kate Ziegler's performance. Michael and Brendan's wins were not the most important stories.
Just because people aren't actively talking about them doesn't mean we don't know about them.
Go to the USA Swimming chat rooms and you'll see loads of talk about those two girls.
The key word was "here." We don't talk about it here? A forum takes the shape of whatever people build it to be. :)
There are a lot of top notch swimmers in the world but the "media darling" factor and "I've got an endorsment deal so you're going to see and hear about me a lot" come into play.
I'm talking about the people on this board. Most of you just wrote about why why it wasn't on TV and had more indepth on Hanson and Phelps. The media is a lot different.
