Don't feel bad if you are having problems swimming straight, particularly near the end of the race when you are tired check out what Daies did in the final few hundred yards of the 10K. At first he looked like he was leading the top group of 3 far left. He then veers to the far right of the finishing shoot allowing Van der Weijen the opportunity to take the lead and capture the gold. Davies post race comments say it all:
"It's going to take a while for it to sink in," Davies said. "At the last bit, I didn't know what was going on."
"I need to learn to swim straight. I know that sounds silly," Davies said.
Third place finisher Lurz made the mistake of following the misdirected Davies at the finish.
"I knew Maarten finished well, so it was important to stay with him," Lurz said.
Oops.
www.nbcolympics.com/.../newsid=241658.html
Make sure to watch the video clip.
Former Member
i watched the whole thing. an amazing swim by davies even if he lacked the experience to close the deal. his effort was heroic.
One thing that I thought was interesting was that in the complete absence of cooperation/trading off the lead, the "pack" doesn't really have any advantage over a breakaway swimmer, the only way they can catch up is if the leader of the pack pulls the whole bunch with him.
I had actually thought for a while that Davies was swimming to the side on purpose to get the pack off his heels. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if he had tried that earlier on.
It always amazes me how even the top level open water swimmers can't navigate and hold a straight line. I noticed it at the 2006 Pan Pacs as well
In this event, Fina rules state that there is to be no drafting. Probably why there is no changing of leaders in the pack. Or these swimmers are happy in the draft pace, and position, and hope the lead swimmer is 'on course'.
The drafting rule, I am told by officials, is difficult given the 'space'. It is easier to avoid a huge draft if the course was not a series of loops. However for spectators a series of loops is better.
Good to see this event in the Olympics. Hope to also see a 25km marathon as well.
When using the rowing basin courses where they have lanes marked out anyway they should have them split into separate lanes every second length in a figure eight pattern to break up the pack. Now that would be fun to watch!
One thing that I thought was interesting was that in the complete absence of cooperation/trading off the lead, the "pack" doesn't really have any advantage over a breakaway swimmer, the only way they can catch up is if the leader of the pack pulls the whole bunch with him.
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i think strategies are still developing in this event.
