Day 2 Prelims Recap

Women's 100 Back:

The tone of preliminary swims at this meet had been for the most part fairly dreary. That all changed when Hayley McGregory clocked 59.15 in the penultimate heat this morning to break Natalie Coughlin's world record. Watching from the stands, I could see Natalie's entire demeanor change. Only Natalie and Teri McKeever probably know what her original race plan was, but I'm guessing that at that moment Natalie decided that Hayley's reign would be short lived. McGregory strode off the deck like a conquering champion, waving at the crowd. Meanwhile, Natalie hopped in with a look of cold focus. 59.03 later, she was on top again. I can't wait for round two.

Men's 200 Freestyle:

There was much ado when at Australian trials all eight finalists exceeded the Olympic "A" standard in this event. In the preliminaries this morning, the top 15 swimmers achieved the "A" standard, raising the possibility that all the American finalists could be under that time (1:48.72). The top dogs were conservative as expected. Larsen Jensen is having an awesome meet. He wasn't expected to be a player in this event but he dropped over a second in his 200 free to qualify 6th with a 1:47.83. Also a surprise among the semi-finalists was Erik Vendt, showing new speed at 27 with a 1:48.23.

Women's 100 Breaststroke:

The women's breaststrokes should offer some of the most exciting races of the weekend. Like many others, there are four legitimate contenders vying for two spots. This morning both Jessica Hardy (1:06.85) and Rebecca Soni (1:06.90) looked best but Megan Jendrick showed a lot of front end speed in recording a 1:07.06. Tara Kirk seemed pretty disappointed with her 1:07.86. She knows that it is likely she will have to swim even faster than the 1:06.6 she recorded earlier this year to qualify for the team.

Men's 100 Backstroke:

Aaron Piersol is 6th. Read that again until it really sinks in. The presumptive favorite looked slow off the start and never seemed to get going in swimming a 54.14. Randall Bal was the most impressive and he leads qualifiers with a 53.28. Joining him were new members of the 53 club Matt Grevers (53.69) and Ben Hesen (53.88) who qualified second and third respectively. We're going to get a much better picture of whether Piersol is actually threatened after his semi-final swim tonight.

Women's 400 Free:

Is Kate Ziegler also in trouble? A year ago she was the darling of American distance swimming, finally breaking through Janet Evans 1500 record. While this event originally looked to be a battle between Hoff and Ziegler with a world record in play, now Allison Schmitt has muddied the waters. With her 4:05.72 she qualified just a tenth behind Hoff and three tenths in front of Ziegler. While Ziegler has struggled throughout the summer season, Schmitt seems to be dropping time every time she jumps in the pool.

Written by Chris DeSantis
Assistant Men's and Women's Swimming Coach
University of Pennsylvania
781 591 9944

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Viking posted July 1 at 9:16am. Ziegler is a warrior. She will win.