My TV guide said "US Swimming Trials on NBC at 8pm -1 hour", so that's what I programmed myself and my VCR for. Guess what? They intermingle Track and Field with Swimming and I end up watching a women's 50m free and parts of the 1500 and that's it.
According to the Omega Timing website, the finals of the women's 50m free and men's 1500m free were the only races today. It doesn't look like you missed much other than the middle of the 1500 (which is to say you missed Larsen pulling away from the field then Vanderkaay catching and passing him, in other words, the best parts of the race). How else are they going to squeeze about 16 minutes of racing into an hour? :-/
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I found Hall Jr.'s "Godfather of Swimming" cape to be slightly ridiculous. However, I also found myself trying to defend him a little bit to the members of my extended family crowded around my television. They thought he looked like a fool. They were also embarrassed that he seemed to typify the stereotypical obnoxious American. I think they were glad he didn't make the team.
I kept trying to tell them that swimming needs more coverage to become more and more popular and, as much as I think it's cheesy, Hall Jr. was adding a "bad guy" element of drama to the telecast. Kind of like pro wrestling where some love to hate the obnoxious guy. They weren't buying it. But, none of my clan would be caught dead watching pro wrestling either.
At first I was annoyed i'd have to fast forward through all those track & field events (plus commercials), but now i'm glad I was forced to watch our country's finest make their way to Bejing! Suddenly, you watch some of these events (and learn what they are), then you really care who makes it!
The bonus of the night: best dive award goes to that girl in the 200 (running) that totally stumbled and DOVE across the finish line to earn that 3rd place/Olympic spot - it was amazing!!! I'm going to watch more track and field from now on!!!
If you missed it, I think it was before the swim events. Correct me if i'm wrong.
Were there any Outside Smokers (actual lane 1 or 8) in swimming make the team this year?
I guess Vendt might have put too much effort into prelims yesterday... I'm stunned that he didn't make it.
Me too. What a rookie mistake to swim too fast in prelims. Vanderkaay looked incredible, though. When I was watching prelims yesterday I noticed Vanderkaay was taking 28 or 29 strokes per 50. I counted today and I took something like 31 doing catchup drill and 35 to 36 doing normal swimming. 28 is pretty impressive.
Margaret Hoelzer needs a bigger suit ASAP! Did anyone see the post swim interview?
Hoelzer is a big girl, no question. I'm not saying fat, just big! I thought Elizabeth Beisel must be a real munchkin considering how small she looked standing next to Hoelzer, but she's listed as being 5'7" in her USA Swimming bio!
Lets all knock these great swimmers, they all deserve the abuse. Why??? - they did not come first or second. At least they were there and tried their best, I did not see any of the nay sayers there.
Must be human nature. We all wallow in mediocrity and want others to be at least as miserable as ourselves. I'm not sure I was knocking anybody just pointing out a double standard.
**** NBC for this bullshit they're pulling during the 1500. God forbid they actually show the whole race -- and not just one commercial during the race, but two?!? :rant3:
Eric seems to have followed the pattern of swimming fast enough but not swimming his best time in the final. Somehow that seems even more heartbreaking.
Dara on the other hand lowered the AR to 24.25, and did it where it counted, in the final. That still leaves her fifth place ranking in the world unchanged though.
