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...
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Oh my goodness, what a night last night. Fabulous 200 back final by the women. Great to see Hoelzer's swim. I'm predicting that Beisel will go under the world record at Beijing.
Possibly the most interesting unreported fact in the trials: at yesterdays final heat in the 1500 prelims, Vendt (at about the 800 m mark give or take) does a triathlon lookup to read the counter board! You remember that FINA won't allow the counters in the water. They are posted at the 50 end by the officials and are completely useless for anyone except someone like me who does open turns. Some officials even put them on the non-breathing side where a swimmer can't look back to find them. Vendt must have lost track and was setting a blistering pace.
Also there was an interesting story in the local paper. At the end of the women's 100 free Torres was so surprised that she won the event that she said she wasn't sure she would swim it in Beijing. Apparently her goal was just to make the 4 X 100 relay and overdid it a bit. She said she wanted to see how she did in the 50 before deciding and that she felt pretty trashed. Well, it looks like it was no problem seeing her 50 free semi swim!
Phelps continues to be disappointed in his fly swims. I think he really wanted the WR in the 100 last night but was just shaking his head at the end. This one is pretty critical for him in Beijing. It looks like he's relying too much on the strong second half swim and not going out hard enough. But he's not really tapered yet, so there may be a lot in there yet. We'll see.
Speaking of not very well tapered, I'm now wondering if Reese didn't taper Hansen or Crocker enough for the Trials. Stovall really wasn't that far behind Crocker in the 100 and that would have shut Ian out of the team. Maybe that was Hansen's problem in the 200 ***.
Nice men's 50 free final. Too bad we can't take more than 2! But the French are going to be tough to beat in the 50 and 100.
I also have some vague memories about new FINA rules for exiting the pool (from this Forum). Most swimmers are leaving from the side but Hoff, notably, is climbing out at the starting block. Is this going to be a problem? Maybe someone can remind me of this discussion.
Grace and I became Susan von der Lippe's Trial adopted parents yesterday. She was going out to party with Nadine Day last night & we reminded her that we didn't want her out too late. She promised to be a good girl.
Oh my goodness, what a night last night. Fabulous 200 back final by the women. Great to see Hoelzer's swim. I'm predicting that Beisel will go under the world record at Beijing.
Possibly the most interesting unreported fact in the trials: at yesterdays final heat in the 1500 prelims, Vendt (at about the 800 m mark give or take) does a triathlon lookup to read the counter board! You remember that FINA won't allow the counters in the water. They are posted at the 50 end by the officials and are completely useless for anyone except someone like me who does open turns. Some officials even put them on the non-breathing side where a swimmer can't look back to find them. Vendt must have lost track and was setting a blistering pace.
Also there was an interesting story in the local paper. At the end of the women's 100 free Torres was so surprised that she won the event that she said she wasn't sure she would swim it in Beijing. Apparently her goal was just to make the 4 X 100 relay and overdid it a bit. She said she wanted to see how she did in the 50 before deciding and that she felt pretty trashed. Well, it looks like it was no problem seeing her 50 free semi swim!
Phelps continues to be disappointed in his fly swims. I think he really wanted the WR in the 100 last night but was just shaking his head at the end. This one is pretty critical for him in Beijing. It looks like he's relying too much on the strong second half swim and not going out hard enough. But he's not really tapered yet, so there may be a lot in there yet. We'll see.
Speaking of not very well tapered, I'm now wondering if Reese didn't taper Hansen or Crocker enough for the Trials. Stovall really wasn't that far behind Crocker in the 100 and that would have shut Ian out of the team. Maybe that was Hansen's problem in the 200 ***.
Nice men's 50 free final. Too bad we can't take more than 2! But the French are going to be tough to beat in the 50 and 100.
I also have some vague memories about new FINA rules for exiting the pool (from this Forum). Most swimmers are leaving from the side but Hoff, notably, is climbing out at the starting block. Is this going to be a problem? Maybe someone can remind me of this discussion.
Grace and I became Susan von der Lippe's Trial adopted parents yesterday. She was going out to party with Nadine Day last night & we reminded her that we didn't want her out too late. She promised to be a good girl.
