It was fun to watch Susan von der Lippe swim the 100 fly in prelims. She moved up in the field roughly 30 places and finished 105 out of 137 to the best of my memory. I talked to her afterwards (she was hanging out at the motel pool with her kids and husband) and she thought it might have been close to her lifetime best (= her qualifying time) since she didn't swim much fly as a kid. Let's see what she can do today in the 100 ***.
Great to see world records in the first two final events. With all the records falling this year, I was not surprised to see two under the WR in the men's 400 IM - I'm betting this will happen more than once this year.
For me, the most exciting race was the 400 free. Great swims by the top four swimmers!
Also nice to see some swimmers move way up in the fields with some big time drops. Over 12,000 in the audience for both the prelims and finals yesterday. It took a while for the crowd to figure out how to cheer for people swimming breaststroke...
Parents
Former Member
Wow. Last night was pretty amazing. I was STUNNED by the men's 200 *** final. John Naber noted before the race that Hansen had said that he thought he should have broken the WR in the semis. But then to finish 4th? It looked to me like he was WAY overconfident, judging from his comments and the smug look on his face all through the meet.
Spann really got trashed by the media on this one. Interviewing Hansen but not Spann after the finals was a real poke in the eye. We are sitting among some parents of Trials swimmers and they were furious about this. One of them even yelled at the cameraman right beside us over the incident. Oh well, whatever sells newspapers. Even John Naber brought up the fact that Spann hasn't done particularly well in the past. His answer was that all he needed to do well in was the one that counted! I note also that Spann wore a full-body suit for the swim.
Amanda Beard's swim was also surprising to watch. Nice to see her swim so well. However, it looks to me as though she should be DQ'd on every swim because you can clearly see her elbows out of the water on the recovery.
Great 100 free finals but, again, John Naber kept telling the crowd that Cullen Jones is the first African-American to have a chance at an Olympic gold swim medal. What happened to Anthony Ervin?
Technical point of the day: No official raises a hand for an infraction. Instead they get the eye of the meet referee and report the infraction. One of the officials told me that this was a FINA rule and that the Trials are trying to follow their protocol whenever possible.
Wow. Last night was pretty amazing. I was STUNNED by the men's 200 *** final. John Naber noted before the race that Hansen had said that he thought he should have broken the WR in the semis. But then to finish 4th? It looked to me like he was WAY overconfident, judging from his comments and the smug look on his face all through the meet.
Spann really got trashed by the media on this one. Interviewing Hansen but not Spann after the finals was a real poke in the eye. We are sitting among some parents of Trials swimmers and they were furious about this. One of them even yelled at the cameraman right beside us over the incident. Oh well, whatever sells newspapers. Even John Naber brought up the fact that Spann hasn't done particularly well in the past. His answer was that all he needed to do well in was the one that counted! I note also that Spann wore a full-body suit for the swim.
Amanda Beard's swim was also surprising to watch. Nice to see her swim so well. However, it looks to me as though she should be DQ'd on every swim because you can clearly see her elbows out of the water on the recovery.
Great 100 free finals but, again, John Naber kept telling the crowd that Cullen Jones is the first African-American to have a chance at an Olympic gold swim medal. What happened to Anthony Ervin?
Technical point of the day: No official raises a hand for an infraction. Instead they get the eye of the meet referee and report the infraction. One of the officials told me that this was a FINA rule and that the Trials are trying to follow their protocol whenever possible.
