Rowdy Gaines

Rowdy really has to go - he is the expert analyst and he is just getting to many things wrong. Example: Dara Torres race - "She lost it on the start - she lost the race on the start" and they show the start with Torres coming up way ahead of Britta Steffen .... I also really did not like how excited he got when there was the potential of Libby Trickett missing the final in the 100 "that would be great" - that is very unsportsmanlike -- kind of like his fault start in 1984 ... Ehoch: I taped that first heat of that semi final and did not remember Rowdy saying that about Libby Tricket missing the final "that would be great." What he did say was that she was currently 9th and Dan Hicks said Tricket is OUT. Then there was a delay in posting the results and they showed the Chinese swimmer that I believe won the heat moving on the block at the start and she was DQ'ed. It was then that the team of Hicks and Gaines said she got a gift from this and would be in lane 8 of the finals. There was no saying by Rowdy Gaines saying "that would be great" and if you happen to go to then USAS Convention in Atlanta, I will show you the actual footage of this. Unfortunately, they do not have that semi final heat on the NBC website. So I do not believe either Dan Hicks or Rowdy Gaines comments were unsportmanlike because it is true, Libby would not be swimming in the finals unless there was a DQ. You are correct about the Dara Torres statement and he did say something about the start. Actually it looked like Dara was ahead until under the flags and both swimmers went to the wall with Dara coming up .01 short. About Rowdy's so called false start, he took advantage of an opportunity that other swimmers did not do. FINA choose Francisco Sylvestri of Panama to be the starter for the Men's events at the 1984 Olympics. He had been the starter at both the 1982 World Championships in Cali and at the Caracas 1983 Pan American Games. In both meets there were complaints about him starting. It seemed he had a bad habit of telling the swimmers "Take your marks" and then firing the gun very quickly perhaps before the swimmers had had time to get into their set position. Often it appeared that swimmers were jumping on there starts, and Sylvestri would fire the gun and walk away and sometimes he would call swimmers back and sometimes he would not. Most of time he did not and Rowdy knew who this guy was from previous meets and so did his coach Richard Quick knew of Sylvestri and his starting tendencies. There were a lot of complaints about him but FINA still had him be the starter. Before the final both Gaines and Quick talked about it and decided to incorporate a strategy. Back in those days there was two false-start rule and if he was called back it would be charged to the field and he would not be able to incorporate the strategy they devised. Rowdy was also known at this time as having one of the fastest starts in the world and was known to have remarkable reflexes. When Rowdy went to the blocks he successfully anticipated the shot of the gun and it seemed to everyone that he started before the gun went off. Mark Stockwell, who was one lane over, had not yet assumed the starting position and was not yet completely down and Mike Heath, who even under the best conditions had a slower start than Gaines. He took advantage of this and immediately had a lead over the field and won the race. His time was :49.80, Stockwell was :50.24 and Heath was :50.41 getting 4th. Both swimmers filed a protest about the start. What was strange was that Mike Heath was from the USA and he had to file a formal protest against his teamate. He was dead last of the blocks. Australia filed a formal protest on behalf of Stockwell to get Gaines disqualified for a false start. Don Grambril filed a protest against the starter but not the race itself. The FINA Technical Committee discussed the protests and rendered a decision in favor of Gaines. I remember seeing this on TV and it was very siimilar to what Milorad Cavic did with the Phelps race in the 100 meter Fly a couple of days ago and they rendered a decison in favor of Phelps. The bottom line in this is that Rowdy Gaines took advantage of an opportunity that every other swimmer could have done, but didn't and because of this strategy, it helped him win the the gold medal in the 100 Free at the 1984 Olympics.

Rowdy really has to go - he is the expert analyst and he is just getting to many things wrong. Example: Dara Torres race - "She lost it on the start - she lost the race on the start" and they show the start with Torres coming up way ahead of Britta Steffen .... I also really did not like how excited he got when there was the potential of Libby Trickett missing the final in the 100 "that would be great" - that is very unsportsmanlike -- kind of like his fault start in 1984 ... Ehoch: I taped that first heat of that semi final and did not remember Rowdy saying that about Libby Tricket missing the final "that would be great." What he did say was that she was currently 9th and Dan Hicks said Tricket is OUT. Then there was a delay in posting the results and they showed the Chinese swimmer that I believe won the heat moving on the block at the start and she was DQ'ed. It was then that the team of Hicks and Gaines said she got a gift from this and would be in lane 8 of the finals. There was no saying by Rowdy Gaines saying "that would be great" and if you happen to go to then USAS Convention in Atlanta, I will show you the actual footage of this. Unfortunately, they do not have that semi final heat on the NBC website. So I do not believe either Dan Hicks or Rowdy Gaines comments were unsportmanlike because it is true, Libby would not be swimming in the finals unless there was a DQ. You are correct about the Dara Torres statement and he did say something about the start. Actually it looked like Dara was ahead until under the flags and both swimmers went to the wall with Dara coming up .01 short. About Rowdy's so called false start, he took advantage of an opportunity that other swimmers did not do. FINA choose Francisco Sylvestri of Panama to be the starter for the Men's events at the 1984 Olympics. He had been the starter at both the 1982 World Championships in Cali and at the Caracas 1983 Pan American Games. In both meets there were complaints about him starting. It seemed he had a bad habit of telling the swimmers "Take your marks" and then firing the gun very quickly perhaps before the swimmers had had time to get into their set position. Often it appeared that swimmers were jumping on there starts, and Sylvestri would fire the gun and walk away and sometimes he would call swimmers back and sometimes he would not. Most of time he did not and Rowdy knew who this guy was from previous meets and so did his coach Richard Quick knew of Sylvestri and his starting tendencies. There were a lot of complaints about him but FINA still had him be the starter. Before the final both Gaines and Quick talked about it and decided to incorporate a strategy. Back in those days there was two false-start rule and if he was called back it would be charged to the field and he would not be able to incorporate the strategy they devised. Rowdy was also known at this time as having one of the fastest starts in the world and was known to have remarkable reflexes. When Rowdy went to the blocks he successfully anticipated the shot of the gun and it seemed to everyone that he started before the gun went off. Mark Stockwell, who was one lane over, had not yet assumed the starting position and was not yet completely down and Mike Heath, who even under the best conditions had a slower start than Gaines. He took advantage of this and immediately had a lead over the field and won the race. His time was :49.80, Stockwell was :50.24 and Heath was :50.41 getting 4th. Both swimmers filed a protest about the start. What was strange was that Mike Heath was from the USA and he had to file a formal protest against his teamate. He was dead last of the blocks. Australia filed a formal protest on behalf of Stockwell to get Gaines disqualified for a false start. Don Grambril filed a protest against the starter but not the race itself. The FINA Technical Committee discussed the protests and rendered a decision in favor of Gaines. I remember seeing this on TV and it was very siimilar to what Milorad Cavic did with the Phelps race in the 100 meter Fly a couple of days ago and they rendered a decison in favor of Phelps. The bottom line in this is that Rowdy Gaines took advantage of an opportunity that every other swimmer could have done, but didn't and because of this strategy, it helped him win the the gold medal in the 100 Free at the 1984 Olympics.