I saw very little of the competition at Worlds. For me it was a blur that started on 1 August and somewhat ended with the completion of the Open Water Swim. The only races that I remember were:
The fastest heat of the 200+ Mixed Free Relay was awsome. I wanted to see that heat as some of my friends from Walnut Creek were in it and then looked to see who was on the Florida and Colorado teams. All the swimmers on those teams were at least a top ten swimmer. On the last exchange, Colorado's 61 year old Rich Abrahams had a 1.36 lead over Florida's 47 year old Rowdy Gaines. Could Rowdy make up the difference? He had 14 years on him. It was a very fast last fifty, with Abrahams holding off the Olympian. The World record was broken by almost five seconds. The first four teams broke the record. All the teams in the heat broke the meet record.
I saw the meets executive director Anne Cribbs swim the breaststroke and freestyle. She had fun.
I saw Debbie Meyer swim the 200 freestyle and I saw Jacki Hirsty win one of her events from the outside lane.
I met the good Smith and the bad Smith near the top of the stairs one day. I still am not sure whether Paul is the good Smith or John is.
It looked like swimmers were have a great time in the tent village that sprang up on the west side of the aquatic center. There appeared to be a lot of trading of t-shirts and swim caps there.
On Saturday morning, I watched the USMS Fighting Flamingos win their match to secure the bronze medal, later that night there were four very good water polo games in the Avery Aquatic Center.
I did swim the 400 freestyle. If I would have swum it 39 seconds faster, I would have made the qualifying time. It did feel good to be in the water.
I would be interested in hearing any stories or vignettes about worlds and also if you were able to do well trading t-shirts or pins. For those who would like to see great pictures of the meet go to
http://www.isiphotos.com
I hope all who attended had a good time.
michael
I'm so glad to hear from GoldRush. I was sitting behind them under the shade area at the side of the pool and I remember when the great trading episode broke out on the last day. It was really fun to watch.....one of the Japanese team members scored three separate warmup jackets....I think one was from Mexico, one from Venezuela...and I think maybe one was from Costa Rica? It was great fun....the Central and South Americans wandered over and everyone was trading with everyone. A few of the Japanese seemed to know a couple of words of Spanish, but I don't think anyone (but the Japanese) spoke any Japanese....so it was all pointing and gesturing; but it worked just fine. My only complaint about the meet had nothing to do with running of the meet. I just kept wishing the Americans would have thought to come up with nifty warmups or team suits.......but, hey.....I COULD HAVE INITIATED that, but didn't. It would have been nice to have suits as attractive as the Gold Rush suits!
Overall, I really enjoyed myself. It was great fun to meet and swim against those names I've seen on the FINA top ten lists.....my only regret was that I didn't swim as well as I would have hoped.
Sally
Originally posted by GoldrushJapan
However, I did my best relay split ever of 25.22 in the +120 - 200m -men's free relay swimming for Gold Rush (GR).
I think I saw you in marshalling before this relay. My team might have even been in the same heat as yours. I just remember three Japanese guys and one clearly non-Japanese guy sitting in front of me :)
Nice job on the relay split!
Good timing on breaking the toe, though.
I had a less serious but equally dumb injury at the meet on the relay day as well. At the end of my warmup I decided only sissies go to the side of the pool to get out, so I pulled myself out at the end of the pool and banged my knee on the backstroke bar of the block! I got a nice bruise but nothing that affected my swimming.
I had an excellent experience. This was my first World Masters and my first masters meet in the US. It was an interesting experience travelling to my home country of the US representing a Japanese team.
I was impressed with not only how organized the meet was, but how serious the competitiors took the races. I saw some people crying after races. I have never seen this before in Japan at the Japan Masters meets.
I volunteered to be a timer after my races were done, because I had a great view of all the best swimmers starts, turns, and see how they concentrated and acted before races. Also, I could get a yellow t-shirt and free lunch. The lunch wasnt bad either. Burritos one day and big sandwiches another day. Food not usual in Japan which I like. I also - got some great t-shirts through trades.
One thought I had was that the announcer should have said "get out of the pool...warm up is over" in other languages, maybe Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Russian, and Japanese (there was a lot of over 60-year-olds from Japan whose English is terrible).....for example. I thought maybe the people just didnt understand that the announcer guy was asking them to get out. Or maybe they just pretended to not understand to get a longer warmup in.
It was a humbling experience swimming with such a depth of great swimmers. Of course I saw the Psych sheets, but I was still surprised at how many fast swimmers were in my 40-44 age group. I still thought I could squeeze into the top 15 or so or even top 10 and get a small medal for the 50-free assuming only a very small improvement on my best time. Unfortunately, I hurt my back somehow doing starts practice and didint do well in my 2 individual events - the 100 and 50-free. The diving blocks in Japan are low and flat so I thought I should practice a lot. I way over practiced my starts and my back felt strange and tight. Then, my time was a second worse on the 50-free and the 100-free than at the all-Japan masters and this cost me about 25 places. However, I did my best relay split ever of 25.22 in the +120 - 200m -men's free relay swimming for Gold Rush (GR). We came in 11th in this relay. and we took 6th place in the mixed free relay +160. (we got a Japan National Record for this).
I hope I have the opportunity to compete with the same level of competition at Perth Australia next time. I plan to train hard for the next 2 years and win a proper individual medal against the best. I intend to join the 24-second group like the Smiths and my fellow ex-patriot in Japan - Brent Barnes.
Cant wait for Perth.
Yeah, Kirk that was me. Hope to get a chance to swim against you again.
Also, Sally you are correct. My teamate Mori, Ken did some great T-shirt trades. I missed the process, but when I came back, I was pretty impressed to see that he managed to trade our goldrush t-shirts for 3 long sleeve sweat jackets. He was the best trader on our team.
I only got a British Soccer shirt and Ramon Volcan's own Venezuala t-shirt.
