With all the Melbourne hoopla and record smashing performances I thought I'd start a 2008 prediction thread and resurect it in a year and a half and see how we all did ...
First, I don't think Beard will make the team, she needs to get her butt to a meet and I reserve the right to change my opinion on that based on any swims she does in the future ...
Women's team ..
50 free - Coughlin & Joyce
100 free - Coughlin & Weir
200 free - Coughlin & Hoff (or Vollmer if Natalie opts out)
400 free - Hoff & Ziegler
800 free - Peirsol & Ziegler
100 back - Coughlin & Vaziri
200 back - Hoelzer & Vaziri
100 *** - Kirk & Hardy
200 ***- Kirk & Jendrick
100 fly - Coughlin & Vollmer
200 fly - Sandeno & Van den Berg
200 IM - Hoff & Myers
400 IM - Hoff & Sandeno
4 relay spots 100 free - Joyce, Nymeyer, Corriea, and Hoff
4 relay spots 200 free - Sandeno, Nymeyer, Myers, and Weir
Men
50 free - Jones & Lezak
100 free - Jones & Lezak
200 free - Phelps & Vanderkaay
400 free - Vanderkaay & Keller
1500 free - Vendt & Jensen
100 back - Peirsol & Lochte
200 back - Peirsol & Phelps (or Lochte)
100 *** - Hansen & Usher
200 *** - Hansen & Usher
100 fly - Crocker & Phelps
200 fly - Phelps & Madwed
200 IM - Phelps & Lochte
400 IM - Phelps & Vendt
4 relay spots 100 free - Walker, Wildman-Tobriner, Weber-Gale, & Hall
4 relay spots 200 free - Cramer, Peirsol, Keller, and Lochte
Not really any shockers ...
Posted in Gary Hall Jr.'s aqua notes
Training for the olympic games...not just for trails
looks like he started training last summer
Warren:
Your avatar bias is starting to show again. However, I give Gary Hall Jr. a chance to make it in the 50 Meter Free. In 2004, I saw Gary at the 2004 Short Course Nationals and like everyone else was impressed with the Race Club Team. I remember talking to Gary before the competition and he told me the swimmer to watch at the meet was Sabir Muhammad and that he would break a lot of records and he himself would not and was there to have fun and get himself ready for the 2004 Olympic Trials. Sabir beat him handly in every race they swam. Based on what I saw that weekend at USMS Nationals, I gave him absolutely no chance at making the team let alone on winning the Gold Medal. I was thinking like others here in that he had not performed in any International Meets and I just did not think he had enough to beat the great American sprinters of the day, even though he is extremly talented. I think he surprised everyone the way he swam and what he did.
So I would never count him out even though I personally think the 50 Free is a lot more competitive now than it was back in 2004. Plus I think, and I know Mr. Goodsmith disagrees, that there has been a major resurgence in the sprint free and the 400 Free Relay since 2004. There was a dry spell from about 1998 to 2004, when the USA was getting beat at World Championships and Olympics but I think in the last 3 years that has changed. Nobody recently has gone below 3:14.04 and that is a good 1.5 seconds than what the USA has done on 2 occasions.
Hall will make it interesting. If he can pull it off and win the Olympic Trials in the 50 Free, he would be the first swimmer ever to win the same event at 4 different Olympic Trials. If he would win the Gold in 2008 in the 50 Free, he would be only the 3rd swimmer in history to pull that off joining Dawn Fraser and Kristini Egerszegi. So thats what's at stake with Hall in the 50 Free. The 50 is so different than the other events with the start, turn, mental/physical things, and different training that anything can happen.
Posted in Gary Hall Jr.'s aqua notes
Training for the olympic games...not just for trails
looks like he started training last summer
Warren:
Your avatar bias is starting to show again. However, I give Gary Hall Jr. a chance to make it in the 50 Meter Free. In 2004, I saw Gary at the 2004 Short Course Nationals and like everyone else was impressed with the Race Club Team. I remember talking to Gary before the competition and he told me the swimmer to watch at the meet was Sabir Muhammad and that he would break a lot of records and he himself would not and was there to have fun and get himself ready for the 2004 Olympic Trials. Sabir beat him handly in every race they swam. Based on what I saw that weekend at USMS Nationals, I gave him absolutely no chance at making the team let alone on winning the Gold Medal. I was thinking like others here in that he had not performed in any International Meets and I just did not think he had enough to beat the great American sprinters of the day, even though he is extremly talented. I think he surprised everyone the way he swam and what he did.
So I would never count him out even though I personally think the 50 Free is a lot more competitive now than it was back in 2004. Plus I think, and I know Mr. Goodsmith disagrees, that there has been a major resurgence in the sprint free and the 400 Free Relay since 2004. There was a dry spell from about 1998 to 2004, when the USA was getting beat at World Championships and Olympics but I think in the last 3 years that has changed. Nobody recently has gone below 3:14.04 and that is a good 1.5 seconds than what the USA has done on 2 occasions.
Hall will make it interesting. If he can pull it off and win the Olympic Trials in the 50 Free, he would be the first swimmer ever to win the same event at 4 different Olympic Trials. If he would win the Gold in 2008 in the 50 Free, he would be only the 3rd swimmer in history to pull that off joining Dawn Fraser and Kristini Egerszegi. So thats what's at stake with Hall in the 50 Free. The 50 is so different than the other events with the start, turn, mental/physical things, and different training that anything can happen.
