Hi all,
My wonderful sister gave me her converter box because she was buying another! I was trying to decide whether to take a step out of cheapskatehood and pick one up, but free is definitely a good price! :)
Anyway, with the acquisition of this device, I discovered the Universal Sports Channel which replays Olympic events and also shows current goings on in sport, such as the National Swimming Championships and now the Worlds, not to mention track and field (another of my passions). True, they tend to get too caught up in beach volleyball at times, but they do show plenty of other good stuff.
Last night I saw the replay of the women's Oympic 10k swim--exciting finish too! (I missed it when it was on last year--presumably NBC was going to show it, but I must have missed the five seconds of coverage it got.)
A couple of things I wondered about--and maybe the more experienced among you can enlighten me:
1. The swim seemed to be in a fairly enclosed area, since the announcer mentioned something about four laps. The swimmers appeared to be quite close to shore. Somehow I had imagined people crossing some wide expanse, but I suppose it would have been logistically difficult in the Olympics to arrange something like that. Conditions seemed pretty controlled in any case, but that may have been just the footage I watched. Two swims I did were fairly close to shore, one in the ocean, another in a bay... and then there was that lake aquathlon that I wished had been further out given the muck on the bottom. But those were all very short distances, 1/4 mile for the lake swim, a mile for the other two. I just somehow expected a more out in the open venue for the 10k.
2. A warning horn was sounded when there was too much jostling... the swimmers were packed rather tight, it's true--reminded me of a track 1500. Have you encountered this in other ow swims? (Not that I plan to punch out my rival swimmers, ha ha! First off, I'd have to be able to catch up to them; second, I'm a consummate Nice Person.) :angel:
3. Swimmers reached up and touched a timing device at the end. I've never encountered anything like that in my limited experience. Are these on their way to becoming commonplace or are they pretty much restricted to international/national competition?
In any event, I was watching the lead swimmers and very, very impressed by their speed so late in the race--veritable motorboats! Pretty cool to watch!
3. 10k nationals in Fort Myers used the metal touch thingy a few years ago, they regularly host fina type races so they have that equipment already. For open water I think this is one of the best ways to only test swimming speed. I've lost places at the end of races due to having to stand and run.
I'd have loved to see that timing device at a race I did a couple years ago... The bottom was so rocky that it wasn't even a matter of running to the beach but slipsliding/ barely walking. It was a mile swim and I think I must have lost about a minute just getting to the finish banner. I understand they fixed the problem since, though not with touchpads.
3. 10k nationals in Fort Myers used the metal touch thingy a few years ago, they regularly host fina type races so they have that equipment already. For open water I think this is one of the best ways to only test swimming speed. I've lost places at the end of races due to having to stand and run.
I'd have loved to see that timing device at a race I did a couple years ago... The bottom was so rocky that it wasn't even a matter of running to the beach but slipsliding/ barely walking. It was a mile swim and I think I must have lost about a minute just getting to the finish banner. I understand they fixed the problem since, though not with touchpads.
