They had a good set-up - indoors in a 25 yards pool. Looked like they did pack the place.
The training - Bowman helped Shaq out a little bit. His stroke was actually not too bad. What bothers me about the show was how little training and preparation Shaq did for this - in this one and all his other shows, it seemed like he only worked out one or two times. A few more workouts and he could have done MUCH better. for example, he never learned a good push off the wall - with a little practice and effort, he would have dropped a second or more right there.
The races:
Race 1: Phelps did a 50 from a push with a 5 second head start to Shaq doing a 25. Shaq won -- but Phelps only did a 24.0. His ankle was not good - he could barely dolphin kick at all.
Race 2: Relay 200 IM for Phelps against Dana Vollmer FLy / Kukors Back / Soni *** and Shaq Free. The girls got a huge lead for Shaq, but Phelps got him on the Free. Again - Phelps went a 1:54 or so - that is about 10 seconds slower than even an average race for him. No *** kick and barely any underwaters - he was up at the flags in the backstroke ...
Race 3: From a push - they took off the LZR for this one. SHaq did a 50 and phelps did a 75. Phelps won by a 1/10th or so - but 38.7 is very slow.
It was a pretty good show overall - does anybody know what on earth SHAQ has tatooed on his chest that they have to cover it for TV ???
I believe they were racing scm? And Shaq went 38+ for a fifty from a push. He may be the only guy in the world who kicks worse than me. But with a few corrections and a months practice, I think he'd be down close to 30 seconds!
Yeah, I caught the breaststroke DK-ing too. You could tell they tried not to show too much of it, especially since *** is already his weakest stroke.
It was fun to see Shaq win a race, even if it was heavily handicapped. He had me and my brother rolling on the floor every few minutes with his remarks. Interesting that a guy Shaq's size still can't match what Phelps has for lunch.
I was a little disappointed they didn't show more underwaters of Phelps swimming, obviously... not very much to see in the way of technique... guess we'll just have to continue relying on the legendary freestyle multi-angle video.
And I can swim faster than Shaq! :D
You should be able to view the last episode here.
Phelps always get these little injuries which trip up his swimming every once in a while. Heck, when he broke his wrist, he actually used that to improve his kick... he'll probably get out of this bum ankle better than ever.
I believe they were racing scm? And Shaq went 38+ for a fifty from a push. He may be the only guy in the world who kicks worse than me. But with a few corrections and a months practice, I think he'd be down close to 30 seconds!
That setup is scy. Maybe on that time, heck the guys 10 feet tall!!!!
I too saw the show. I was very impressed with Shaq. Just think how fast he could go if he spent a few weeks in the pool. His times were not bad at all with no streamline whatsoever and that huge wide-leg kick of his.
Phelps looked like he was going slow on purpose in the IM. It wasn't just his ankle. His backstroke looked terrible and he popped to the surface on every turn. His freestyle looked fast enough when he wanted it to be.
Staged nicely though all around. Shaq was funny and seemed to appreciate Bowman's help. Notice he called him "sir?"
