Great for Lochte - what a sweet swim, led wire to wire - didn't even seem to be breathing heavily after, must be the laid back attitude even his breathing isn't in a hurry.
Is "reaction time" the time between the gun and when your feet leave the block?
If so, wouldn't tall swimmers tend to have slower reaction times? - their hands/body could be ahead of other swimmers while their feet are still on the blocks making their reaction time slower.
Yes, that's how it's measured. The real reason to have this at all, of course, is to judge relay takeoffs automatically.
You're probably right about taller swimmers having slower reaction times. You can't really leave the block until your body is fully extended, after all, and it stands to reason taller swimmers will take longer to do this since they've got more distance to cover to become fully extended.
Yeah, purely using reaction time to judge someone's start is about as useful as evaluating a baseball player's offensive contribution by only stating his batting average.
pellegrini openly blamed teammates for not placing in relay. she says she and filippi couldnt pull the weight for all of them.
i don't think anybody was gonna to beat china.
i don't think anybody was gonna to beat china.
China won with their consistency. Unfortunately the U.S. team had a (relatively speaking, of course) weak swimmer in Nymeyer. If Hoff had been on her game at Trials the U.S. could have beaten them.
In the 2004 olympics kitajima dolphin kicked as he completed his pull down, with hands & arms next to his side, he later changed & started doing it before his pull down while his arms were still streamlined. The rules changed saying that there had to be some arm motion & a slight parting of the hands sufficed
some breastrokers take a dolphin kick on their dive in the bubbles, where officials can't see
While I used to hate him too, I now respect Kitajima and chose to view him as an innovator. I really like the dolphin kick at the commencement of the pulldown. It's very natural. When I swim butterfly, I do a kick at the commencement of my pulldown so it translates over very easily...
China won with their consistency. Unfortunately the U.S. team had a (relatively speaking, of course) weak swimmer in Nymeyer. If Hoff had been on her game at Trials the U.S. could have beaten them.
Maybe find another good 200 freeer and really forget about Hoff. Just remember, when she was on the 4 x 200 relay in Beijing, they got 3rd. Vollmer, Schmitty, and Kukors are great together. They just need to find that fourth person to solve the puzzle. Maybe it will be Coughlin, who knows. Those three girls really brought some light back to the US 4 x 200 relay. :applaud:
It was great to see 28 year old Hehn almost make the finals of the 200 ***. Gosh, remember when breaststrokers used to burn out at 18. Heck, I initially thought that Beard and Megan Jendrick were in that category until their comebacks. It is great for someone to reach their peak at 28.
Speculation on cs.com is that the Americans might have done better putting Julia Smit (1:56 last year, nice 100M free this meet) on the 4x200 instead of Nymeyer
Yeah, but Smit didn't even break 2:00 at Trials. Nymeyer earned her way on with her prelims split. It was the right call.
Is there any chance those crazy Russians will upset the US tomorrow in the 800 Free relay ? The top 2 guys are certainly right there -- they had a blistering 400 Free relay and the Russians often come through with great relay swims (as do the Americans ...) ?
I don't think so. I think they had more depth in there 400 Free Relay swimmers than they do in there 800 Free Relay swimmers. You are correct that there top 2 guys are very close to our top 2 guys. Izotov improved his 200 Free time from Beijing from a 1:45. 85 to a 1:43.90 and Lobintsev improved his time from a 1:46.64 to a 1:45.31 this year. Sukhorukov has gone 1:44.65 in a relay but has not swam as well as last year. There 4th guy Lagunov has gone 1:46.46.
With Phelps at 1:43.22 and Walters at 1:44.95 gun starts, I give the those 2 legs about 1.25 advantage and that is being very conservative. For them to have a chance to win they would have to go 6:58 and to get there they would need a 1:43 and 3 guys in the 1:45 for splits. It very possible they will do that but I think the USA will go 6:55 tomorrow for a 3 second improvement from Beijing.
It will be interesting to see if Ryan Lochte will swim the morning preliminary heats. Traditionally the 3rd - 6th place swimmers from trials swim with the 1st and 2nd swimming finals only. But because of the 200 Back final tomorrow night, I think the coaches will pass on him in the morning and swim, Walters, Berens, Tarwater, and Vanderkaay. They will take the fastest swimmers out of these 4 plus what they think Ryan could do and those will be the swimmers that swim with Phelps in the final.
With the way Ryan has been swimming, I think he will be on the relay in the finals. My hunch is that VDK, Berens, and Walters will battle it out for the last 2 spots. Tarwater would have to beat all of them to make it. They might have the same relay as last year. I think all of these swimmers are swimming faster than last year and you could actually have 3 swimmers in a LZR (Phelps, VDK, Lochte) and one swimmer in a Jacked. Even with this I give the USA a 2 second advantage to beat the Russians.
At the 2008 Olympics, the Russians were 5.14 seconds behind at 7:03.70 and they will see improvement in the 6:58 range. USA went 6:58.56 in Beijing and I can see a 2 to 3 second improvement for a new World Record.
