Bill is an absolute animal...I've had the pleasure of knowing him for years. He trains just like he races...all or nothing with no fear what-so-ever of the "vertical" realm of this particular stroke/event!
Paul, you absolutely correct about Bill. In 1999 at the Long Course Nationals in Minneapolis which I believe was a year before you started back swimming in masters, Bill swam a :57.79 in the 100 Fly in the 40-44 age group and set a World Record. I am not sure what the old record was but it was even faster then the :58.03 that Mark Spitz did when he swam his comeback at age 41.
When he swam the 200 Fly, everyone that was watching knew he was going for the World Record and I believe his seed time was 2:08.00 and when he swam everyone watched with awe in how he was taking out this race.
He split :28.83 at the 50, :32.11 for the next 50 at 1:01.11 for the 100, and :33.76 for the next 50 at 1:34.87 for the 150. The announcer was going nuts and everyone in the stands and deck was witnessing this great swim. His closest competitor was Joe Rhyne, who was at 1:04.00 at the 100 and 1:38.50 at the 150. Nobody was really paying attention to him at that point. At the 150 turn, Bill was kind of slow coming out and you could see he was enduring a lot of pain. But we see this a lot with great flyers like Specht and they usually snap out of it in the last 50 or last 25 but not on this day. The announcer stopped talking about the world record and you could sense this was just pure survival and just get the win.
He started to go vertical with about 25 meters to go and you could see Joe Rhyne starting to catch him and he went by him with about 15 meters to go. He was fighting fatigue bad and it was like everyone watching could feel his pain. He could barely get his arms out of the water and there was nothing left at the kick. Rhyne's last 50 was a :34.16 for a final time of 2:12.66 and Bill's was a :40.01 for a time of 2:14.88 but watching the race and seeing him go vertical seemed like he did :44, so his lost by 2.22 seconds wasn't as bad as it seemed. When he got out of the pool and went to the warm down pool he looked completely exhausted.
The 100 back was the very next event and he was seeded first with some very tough and rested competition. He had Scott Shake and Fritz Lehman and they were both ahead of him at the 50 and with 25 meters to go but some how he found a way to sprint past them with 5 meters to go and win the event by a very slim margin. When he finished, he got a standing ovation from the crowd in the stands and on the deck not so much for this event but for how he recovered and didn't let that 200 Fly effect him is this race. I think everyone that saw those races learned something that day and even though he would not want to remember this race, I was impressed with how he handled this adversity.
Bill is an absolute animal...I've had the pleasure of knowing him for years. He trains just like he races...all or nothing with no fear what-so-ever of the "vertical" realm of this particular stroke/event!
Paul, you absolutely correct about Bill. In 1999 at the Long Course Nationals in Minneapolis which I believe was a year before you started back swimming in masters, Bill swam a :57.79 in the 100 Fly in the 40-44 age group and set a World Record. I am not sure what the old record was but it was even faster then the :58.03 that Mark Spitz did when he swam his comeback at age 41.
When he swam the 200 Fly, everyone that was watching knew he was going for the World Record and I believe his seed time was 2:08.00 and when he swam everyone watched with awe in how he was taking out this race.
He split :28.83 at the 50, :32.11 for the next 50 at 1:01.11 for the 100, and :33.76 for the next 50 at 1:34.87 for the 150. The announcer was going nuts and everyone in the stands and deck was witnessing this great swim. His closest competitor was Joe Rhyne, who was at 1:04.00 at the 100 and 1:38.50 at the 150. Nobody was really paying attention to him at that point. At the 150 turn, Bill was kind of slow coming out and you could see he was enduring a lot of pain. But we see this a lot with great flyers like Specht and they usually snap out of it in the last 50 or last 25 but not on this day. The announcer stopped talking about the world record and you could sense this was just pure survival and just get the win.
He started to go vertical with about 25 meters to go and you could see Joe Rhyne starting to catch him and he went by him with about 15 meters to go. He was fighting fatigue bad and it was like everyone watching could feel his pain. He could barely get his arms out of the water and there was nothing left at the kick. Rhyne's last 50 was a :34.16 for a final time of 2:12.66 and Bill's was a :40.01 for a time of 2:14.88 but watching the race and seeing him go vertical seemed like he did :44, so his lost by 2.22 seconds wasn't as bad as it seemed. When he got out of the pool and went to the warm down pool he looked completely exhausted.
The 100 back was the very next event and he was seeded first with some very tough and rested competition. He had Scott Shake and Fritz Lehman and they were both ahead of him at the 50 and with 25 meters to go but some how he found a way to sprint past them with 5 meters to go and win the event by a very slim margin. When he finished, he got a standing ovation from the crowd in the stands and on the deck not so much for this event but for how he recovered and didn't let that 200 Fly effect him is this race. I think everyone that saw those races learned something that day and even though he would not want to remember this race, I was impressed with how he handled this adversity.
