At first I thought the US girls would be fighting for a Bronze, now I think they may have a good chance to win this one.
Plenty of fast swimmers being rested, but most countries will do a swim-off for the 3 and 4 spot. Good swim by Kara Lynn Joyce - probably add Nymeyer + Coughlin and Torres. Not sure about the order though -- they usually like to lead off with Coughlin - maybe Torres as the anchor ?
The Dutch number 3 and 4 were off their WR times and the Aussie girls did not convince either. Have to watch out for the Chinese -- not sure if they have anybody else, but if they can replace the 55+ split with a 53+ split they are also in the running for Gold.
Are you referring to the heats?
US 3:37:53, first in their heat.
Kara-Lynne Joyce
Julia Smit
Emily Silver
Lacey Nymyer
But Chinese and German teams both posted better times in their heat.
VB
www.nbcolympics.com/.../index.html
I think the Dutch are the slight favorites with Dekker and Veldhuis to swim with Van Rooijen and Heemskerk (53.5 split). But the U.S. is in better shape with KLJ back to her best form.
It's quite possible that the World Record will survive finals.
Yea, countries can change swimmers between prelims and finals. The US relay will probably be Coughlin, KLJ, Nymemer and Torres.
What order, I don't know but I expect Coughlin to lead off, she seems like to like that role.
The Aussies will add Libby Trickett, which should improve their time. The Germans used their best swimmer, Britta Steffen, this morning, so they may not have enough to switch out.
The chinese had their 2 individual 100 free entries on their relay, so who knows. If they can pump in some extra juice, they may be able to win in front of the home crowd.
I noticed in the prelims that they are not doing the running start that I've seen college kids do, where they stand at the back of the block and step forward and dive, timing it just right. Is that not a legal Olympic start?
It looked like she got stronger at the end.....if you watch closely...she keeps the same stroke the whole way through.....it never seems to break down at all!! Amazing!!!!
I noticed in the prelims that they are not doing the running start that I've seen college kids do, where they stand at the back of the block and step forward and dive, timing it just right. Is that not a legal Olympic start?
I noticed that too. I'm pretty confident it's legal. On rewatching I think some people were doing the step-up. There's no question it's a little more dicey in terms of false starting. Maybe that's the main reason teams don't use it. I'll be interested to see what the men do.
