2012 Olympic Trials USA Swimming

I'm told that at a certain point, minute variations in individual lane length (not all lanes of a pool are precisely identical in length when measured to the nth degree) become material enough to cause a minute time variation If you think about it the average speed of an Olympic level swimmer is roughly 2 meters per second. That means in one thousandth of a second a swimmer will travel 2 millimeters. There's no way they can build a pool with that kind of precise tolerance. Imagine in a 400 meter event. If one lane is just a millimeter shorter than another the swimmer in the short lane gets an 8 mm or .004 second advantage. If you only measure to the nearest .01 second then the two swimmers tie. Measure to .001 and the swimmer in the short lane wins merely because his lane was shorter and not because he swam faster. One thing I've wondered about is how precisely the blocks are mounted. Everyone knows the lanes are measured, but what about the block positioning? If, say, one block is 1/4" forward of the others that gives someone a real advantage, especially in a short race!

Tuesday, June 26 Trials Day 2 starts at 10 central Prelims: Women's 100m Back Men's 200m Free Women's 100m *** Men's 100m Back Women's 400m Free Finals & Semis: Women's 100m Fly - Final Men's 200m Free - Semifinal Women's 100m *** - Semifinal Men's 100m *** - Final Women's 400m Free - Final Men's 100m Back - Semifinal Women's 100m Back - Semifinal Day 2 Heat Sheet Day2 Timelines PRELIMS Finals 2012 United States Olympic Trials - Swimming RESULTS DAY 2 Results Day 1 Results LIVE RESULTS Swim Swam Olympic Trials Coverage SwimSwam.com day 1 live updates & recaps PSYCH Sheet PRELIMS WEBCAST All but the fastest heats of preliminaries will be webcast live June 25 - July 1 beginning at 10 a.m. CT. The fastest 2-4 heats of preliminaries will be broadcast on tape delay by NBC Sports. NBC Swimming Sign up for NBS Alerts Watch on TV 6:30-8 p.m. Qualifying heats (SDD) NBCSN 8-9 p.m. NBC Finals (LIVE) One cool thing is the website has USA Olympic Swimming Trials Results from 1920 - 2008 CUTS APPROVED TECH SUITS Link to 2012 Olympic Swimming 2012 Olympics USMS Forum Site NBCOlympics.com Swimming Streaming Schedule LIVE EXTRA Day TIME (ET) NETWORK EVENTS June 25 8-9 p.m. NBC Finals Swimming Tweets

If you think about it the average speed of an Olympic level swimmer is roughly 2 meters per second. That means in one thousandth of a second a swimmer will travel 2 millimeters. There's no way they can build a pool with that kind of precise tolerance. Imagine in a 400 meter event. If one lane is just a millimeter shorter than another the swimmer in the short lane gets an 8 mm or .004 second advantage. If you only measure to the nearest .01 second then the two swimmers tie. Measure to .001 and the swimmer in the short lane wins merely because his lane was shorter and not because he swam faster. One thing I've wondered about is how precisely the blocks are mounted. Everyone knows the lanes are measured, but what about the block positioning? If, say, one block is 1/4" forward of the others that gives someone a real advantage, especially in a short race! I hear the voice of reason! I know that Frank DeFord (sports writer) says that "American's can't abide a tie," but there are cases in sport when a tie is the correct outcome. Given current technology, differences of "winner" is nonsensical. I feel the same way about a 5-hour 5-set tennis match that ends 7-5 in a tiebreaker. The eventual winner is decided by statistical fluctuations, not by who is the better tennis player. Certainly it is ok to have an element of randomness (luck) in sport, as long as we don't believe that we are actually identifying the "best" player or "best" team.

I got that "Bad Gateway" error message too, a bunch of times. Then the video feed started up, finally. Keep trying.

I was watching the live timing and noticed a .41 reaction from someone in the last heat of the 100 back. I figure this means either: 1. this girl has cat-like reflexes, or 2. she totally slipped on the start. I think number two is more likely. Clark Smith in the water right now...

Watching the men's 400m free yesterday and the 200m free now, I continue to be absolutely amazed at Sun Yang's closing :54.2 in the 1500 recently (Asian champs?). I realize it's fairly early in the 200 right now (just finished heat 5 of 13), but these guys are splitting anywhere from 53-high to 55-low at the 100.

I continue to be absolutely amazed at Sun Yang's closing :54.2 in the 1500 recently Consider this: it was faster than Jenny Thompson went to set a new world record in the 100 free at Olympic Trials in 1992!

Is anyone else getting a 502 Bad Gateway error at the USA swimming webcast site? It worked great for me yesterday. Today, I was first prompted to install a new version of the microsoft software. Now, I just get the 502 error. Any suggestions?

Women's 100 back prelims: Missy Franklin: 59.54 Rachel Bootsma: 59.69 Elizabeth Pelton: 1:00.55 Olivia Smoliga: 1:00.60 Natalie Coughlin: 1:00.71 Awesome heat times, particularly from Bootsma. Franklin is apparently not sick. Hopefully more to come tonight.

10 guys sub 1:49 in the heats of the 200. Very slow prelims, if you ask me. All of the usual suspects advance, Lochte seeded first with a 1:48.1. Dax Hill and David Nolan don't advance. I'm a bit surprised at Hill.