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
How about some non-swimming Trials experiences? Were concessions good? What was the crowd like? What color T-shirt did you get? How did you fill non-swimming time? Did you get any autographs? Who'd you see in person? What was for sale in the aqua-what's-it-called? Trading cards? Details, please!
And.....next Trials, what would you have done differently/the same? My sister gave me all the details of her trip. Bottom line - she had such a great time she wants to go for the entire event next Trials!
The Qwest Center is a new arena, so it has lots of concession stands and lots of bathrooms. I never had to wait in line for anything for more than 1 or 2 minutes, tops. Their concession stands weren't bad. They had the usual arena-run stands, but they also had some that were run by local restaurants. One was a Greek restaurant that had good gyros.
The July 4th T-shirts and flags were a nice touch. As we entered the arena they handed us our flags and told us that our shirts would be on the backs of our seats. I sat in a "red" section.
We figured out after the first day that it wasn't worth leaving the area between the prelims and finals. Because there were so many restaurants within walking distance, we just walked over, found a restaurant, and had a nice meal. We also found the awesome homemade ice cream place.
As Mel said, they really missed out on the opportunity to sell a LOT more merchandise. Kiefer had a stand in the arena itself (not the AquaZone) where they were selling T-shirts. But they ran out of the good T-shirts (the short-sleeved red ones) by mid-week and we never saw any more. They missed out on probably three full days of what could have been good sales, especially because a lot of people attended only on the 3-day holiday weekend.
Friday night was our "celebrity spotting" night. We were in an Italian restaurant after the finals session. In walked Bob Costas with a female companion (we assumed it was his wife). They were seated in a corner near us. Pretty soon a large group, including Ryan Lochte's dad, came in and sat at a big table. Not long after that, Michael Phelps's mother came in with another large group. They were seated at a large table near the Lochte table. After a while, in walked Ryan Lochte himself. He was still wearing the same clothes he had worn on the medal stand, but now he had a band-aid on his arm where they had taken blood. Everyone in the restaurant burst out in applause. Ryan looked a little shocked by that!
How about some non-swimming Trials experiences? Were concessions good? What was the crowd like? What color T-shirt did you get? How did you fill non-swimming time? Did you get any autographs? Who'd you see in person? What was for sale in the aqua-what's-it-called? Trading cards? Details, please!
And.....next Trials, what would you have done differently/the same? My sister gave me all the details of her trip. Bottom line - she had such a great time she wants to go for the entire event next Trials!
The Qwest Center is a new arena, so it has lots of concession stands and lots of bathrooms. I never had to wait in line for anything for more than 1 or 2 minutes, tops. Their concession stands weren't bad. They had the usual arena-run stands, but they also had some that were run by local restaurants. One was a Greek restaurant that had good gyros.
The July 4th T-shirts and flags were a nice touch. As we entered the arena they handed us our flags and told us that our shirts would be on the backs of our seats. I sat in a "red" section.
We figured out after the first day that it wasn't worth leaving the area between the prelims and finals. Because there were so many restaurants within walking distance, we just walked over, found a restaurant, and had a nice meal. We also found the awesome homemade ice cream place.
As Mel said, they really missed out on the opportunity to sell a LOT more merchandise. Kiefer had a stand in the arena itself (not the AquaZone) where they were selling T-shirts. But they ran out of the good T-shirts (the short-sleeved red ones) by mid-week and we never saw any more. They missed out on probably three full days of what could have been good sales, especially because a lot of people attended only on the 3-day holiday weekend.
Friday night was our "celebrity spotting" night. We were in an Italian restaurant after the finals session. In walked Bob Costas with a female companion (we assumed it was his wife). They were seated in a corner near us. Pretty soon a large group, including Ryan Lochte's dad, came in and sat at a big table. Not long after that, Michael Phelps's mother came in with another large group. They were seated at a large table near the Lochte table. After a while, in walked Ryan Lochte himself. He was still wearing the same clothes he had worn on the medal stand, but now he had a band-aid on his arm where they had taken blood. Everyone in the restaurant burst out in applause. Ryan looked a little shocked by that!
