en-us Copyright 2006-2008 Flocasts Inc Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:05:47 -0500 http://www.floswimming.org/assets/portal/simple30/images/logos/floswimming-logo.gif http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Garrett McCaffrey/3671-beijing-bloopers Swimming finished a few days ago, but I still have a week in China. I'm going to the Great Wall in a couple days, and I've been able to check out some other events. I got to watch the final of the Men's 100 meter dash. Usain Bolt's dominating 9.69 was the first world record Mark from flotrack ever saw in person. It was an amazing experience, but it just re-affirms my belief that it's a great time to be a swim fan. Some of the swimmers are still around, but for the most part I'm going to be lucky to get any more swimming stuff. Here are some of the out-takes/bloopers from our adventures thus far, and some pics from that night at the track... Garrett McCaffrey http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Garrett McCaffrey/3671-beijing-bloopers Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:09:00 -0500 http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Chris DeSantis/3658-moving-on As the Olympics wound down, I found myself getting anxious. Anxious about what was next and where we go from here. Everywhere I went, people that had no association with swimming wanted to talk some swimming. People knew that I was obsessed and wanted some insight. They wanted to talk about Phelps, of course, but they wanted to talk about Lezak too, or what happened to Brendan Hansen. Swimming exploded to the front page of major newspapers, magazines and websites that otherwise never mentioned its existence. Don't get me wrong, I love all the attention swimming is getting. However, I still remember that eight years ago all of my high school classmates knew who Ian Thorpe was. When I mention the Thorpedo to a non-swimming audience today, I get mostly puzzled looks. As famous as Phelps is today, with a facebook page exceeding Will Smith among others, there is a serious chance that many people will forget about him soon after he retires. I heard my first whisper of Phelps backlash today. If you've read my posts you know I am a fan of sports radio and podcasts. My favorite is the BS Report with Bill Simmons, who unfortunately is embroiled in writing a basketball book and hasn't recorded one for nearly three weeks. Turning to other sources, I have reluctantly started listening to one of Bill's friends, Dave Dameshek. Dameshek is a sports radio host in Los Angeles. Now I know the point of sports radio hosts is often to enflame, so I remained calm while listening to Dave discuss Phelps. He put forth the argument that swimming was a "fringe" sport that very few people competed in. His guest concurred, even going so far as to say that athletes like Michael Jordan could have been one of the best at "15-20" sports, while Phelps could only succeed at one. While I'm sure we all know the appropriate counter arguments, this is just another piece of the Phelps backlash that we've read and then discussed on this site, including the Tribune article and some British guy named Brendan Gallagher. For every one of these though, there has been the respect paid to Phelps by numerous others. I often joke with friends that one of my career goals is to be bashed mercilessly as a terrible swim coach on an anonymous forum. To spark such vitriol you often have to be very very good at what you do. Therefore perhaps we should be happy that so much effort is being put into bringing Michael Phelps down. If he wasn't so high up, no one would be trying. On a completely unrelated note, I'm taking a vacation. I'll be back soon, and ready to unleash a post I've been writing in my head for months. Perhaps you've read the Slacker's Guide's to Training Trip and Taper survival? Get ready for the Slacker's Guide to College Coaching Survival: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Ruining Swimming for Kids 18-22. Chris DeSantis http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Chris DeSantis/3658-moving-on Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:14:00 -0500 http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Jeff Grace/3639-the-development-of-excellence After being inspired by the post of Dave Korst I haved decided to post an article that I use in our team manual, give out to all new parents and have had printed in different papers. What are the things that we would ideally like children to take away form a sporting experience? Fun, accomplishment, work ethic, confidence, self-discipline, and a life-long love of fitness may be just a few. Well, there is a sport that can offer children all of those things wrapped up in one. That sport is competitive swimming! Throughout the years many people in different communities across the world have recognized what type of person comes from a competitive swimming background. Student-athletes in University swim programs across North America are known for their incredible self-discipline, time management skill, and commitment to excellence. Many swimmers such as Deke Botsford and Ron Karnaugh have gone on to compete internationally while successfully completing medical school. Anette Salmeen went on to become a Rhode Scholar and Olympic Gold Medallist. These are only a few examples of swimmers who have learned through their sport important skills that are needed to be successful in all are of their lives. Achieving success is a process, a journey that has many lessons that come along the way. In the sport of competitive swimming there are many aspects that young athletes learn that will develop their character for the rest of their lives. Athletes are put into a unique situation right from the beginning. They are taught that doing a good job comes first. Who teaches them this? Their sport does by stressing personal best times. As a result, most competitive swimmers learn early in their careers that what’s important is not the ribbon, medals, or awards you win, but whether or not you do the work you need to improve yourself. These traits develop in an ideal environment that stresses the importance of self-reliance and co-operation. Although swimming is an individual sport and teaches children a great deal about responsibility and independence, an aspect that is often forgotten is that it is also a team sport. Swimmers are involved with a team that is heading in one direction; a team that is focused on supporting and helping every athlete to achieve their personal aspirations. Athletes not only benefit from the support of their team-mates in their individual pursuits, but also learn how to support others and work co-operatively to become better people. As a result of learning many of these lessons, most competitive swimmers also learn the value of being a certain kind of person – a person with a good character. Jeff Grace http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Jeff Grace/3639-the-development-of-excellence Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:02:00 -0500 http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Mrs. Coach/3628-coaching-girls-vs-boys Because Mr. Coach coaches both men and women, people sometimes ask him (or Mrs. Coach if she’s standing closer) which gender he prefers to coach. Mrs. Coach thinks that, if Mr. Coach HAD to make a choice between the two, he might choose the female of the species and the reasons have nothing to do with anything sleazy. If you’ve seen one scantily clad female with overdeveloped trapezius muscles, you’ve seen them all. It’s just that when you figure you spend 95 percent of your time with an athlete in practice and not meet situations, and one of those genders is a LOT easier to work with in practice situations, it only makes sense that you’d go with the practice-friendly species. That’s not to say girls can’t be a chore to coach. For starters, girls cry. Usually it’s about stuff that has nothing to do with swimming. Relationship woes top the list of reasons to cry during practice, but so do intra-team personality conflicts, midterm exams, sick pets and the return of high-waisted pants. But, to their credit, girls will cry AND swim. They’re just more efficient that way. Mr. Coach also maintains that girls are fundamentally tougher and that’s very useful in practice situations. Boys will bitch and moan and whine and complain and touch each other in inappropriate places during practice. They will not only pee in the water during practice, they will announce they just peed in the water during practice. And then when practice is over, they’ll bitch and moan and whine and complain all the way into the showers where they’ll drag chairs in, sit under the water for half an hour, and continue to bitch and moan and whine and complain until the maintenance crew comes to Mr. Coach and tells him to get the boys out of the shower. Now to be fair, in meet situations boys do seem to function more predictably than girls do, and Mr. Coach does appreciate that. And boys, if so moved by the spirit, will swim through a bulkhead if that’s what the team needs (girls would but, again to their credit, they know that heads don’t grow back). Mrs. Coach also feels compelled to add that girls are more readily available and responsible babysitters but boys do make for very interesting babysitters. One guy once built a small city out of Tinkertoys in Mr. and Mrs. Coach’s living room. It was so cool looking they left it up for two weeks. And guys’ Lego skills tend to be off the charts. Once graduated, girls will stay in touch pretty frequently for the first five or so years, but then they’ll disappear into their new lives. The guys disappear at first and then reappear after about three years. And usually when they reappear, the first thing they do is apologize for everything they ever did to make Mr. Coach’s life difficult. It’s like clockwork, the way the guys reappear and apologize. And then they’ll start bitching and moaning and whining and complaining about something new. In a way, it’s kind of comforting. Mrs. Coach http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Mrs. Coach/3628-coaching-girls-vs-boys Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:02:00 -0500 http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Jeff Grace/3615-wow Wow I don’t have a lot of words at this moment to express what we have just witnessed. Many words will be written about the last week for many years to come. I hate quoting a commercial, but Morgan Freeman said it best in a Visa commercial, “That's well ... we're going to need some new adjectives for whatever that is ...” Brendan Hansen’s statement after the relay says all that may need to be said at this moment. "Every single athlete in the world right now needs to tip their hat to Michael Phelps" Congratulations Michael for accomplishing the greatest feat in sporting history and thank you for showing the world how great swimming can be! Jeff Grace http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Jeff Grace/3615-wow Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:22:00 -0500 http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Jeff Grace/3590-the-value-of-objectivity The last week of Olympic competition has show cased many of the great things about swimming that those who are not immersed in it may not realize. The quest for eight gold medals by Phelps has shown just how great an athlete can be; how someone can be a master of all the skills in a chosen discipline, it has shown the world how hard someone has to work to achieve that mastery and it has shown how important and special a relationship between a coach and athlete can be. The men’s 4 x 100 freestyle relay showed how exciting and unbelievable the finish of a race is. How basketball, football and boxing are not the only sports that can have trash talkers that will as one might say, ‘Have a guitar shoved down their throat,’ after making predictions. There have been great stories of athletes overcoming adversity and heart break that the public seems to desire and need. One of the greatest things about our sport is that the final standings are the result of objective and not subjective criteria. I believe (and it kills me to say this) that swimming is the second hardest sport to prepare for; second only to gymnastics. It made me sick last night watching the athletes doing incredible feats of athleticism and then be subject to the opinion of judges and watching those judges on phones and in front of monitors arguing about what the right score should be. It is obvious that those who govern the sport realize that the legitimacy of the results and their sport are questioned on a regular basis. There are many articles that make the argument that judged sports should not be in the Olympics. Can you take a sport out of the Olympics in which the athletes show case what could be the ultimate display of what a human is capable of through tremendous discipline and athleticism. At the same time, should a sport that is decided by such subjective measures that allows not only human error, but unpreventable bias be in the Olympics? That brings me back to the point that one of the greatest things about swimming is that the results are objective. It is black and white. The clock rewards the person that gets their hand on the wall first. The clock is fair, but harsh. It doesn’t care if your goggles fill up with water, it doesn’t care if you have the stomach flu, it doesn’t care if you had to study for three finals and missed five days of practice and it doesn’t care if you are having family problems. The results of swimming are legitimate and cannot be argued, because the clock does not accept excuses. Disclaimer – Once again I will put in a disclaimer because there will ultimately be the argument that the results are not always legitimate because of the drug issue. This argument cannot be avoided and is valid, but let’s hope those who are not playing by the rules are being caught. Jeff Grace http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Jeff Grace/3590-the-value-of-objectivity Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:00:00 -0500 http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Jeff Grace/3581-the-forgotten-olympian As I sit here on my couch in Vancouver watching the night’s second telecast of Olympic swimming (yes I know I have now admitted that I have no life) I can’t help but think the North American media has forgotten someone. Just to explain the typical night up here, the CBC (Canadian Broadcast Company) telecast is live (7:00 pm PST), that is unless there are Canadian swimmers in the semi finals than they telecast men’s gymnastics, but they at least they have live streaming of the events on their website. Then about three hours later the NBC telecast comes on. So in other words I get about one hour of none swimming in a five hour evening, did I mention I don’t have a life. Sitting here listening to commentators from both Canada and the United States I just couldn’t take it anymore. I handled it in the 400 IM, I even somewhat put up with it in the 200 butterfly, but the 200 IM pushed me over the edge! I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone who didn’t have the luxury of watching the events on television or on the internet and only had axis to a radio (which was the only way that I caught the last five minutes of possibly the greatest finish to an NCAA basketball championship ever – another story for another time – did I mention I don’t have a life). If this was the case and the background noise was just a little too loud or if I was caught eating a bag of Doritos, I realized that I may not be aware that Laszlo Cseh had even left the starting blocks in the 2008 version of the Olympics. Now I will insert a disclaimer that I had debated putting at the beginning or the end of this article. Since I decided to do neither a sly placement in the middle of this diatribe is a perfect compromise. I have as much if not more respect for Phelps and Bowman than anyone and that is only equaled by the amount of respect I have for Lochte, his father and Gregg Troy. I love the quest for eight gold medals, I love the story line of two teammates battling each other for Olympic glory and I am not an Anti-American Canadian. But if I have to hear one more time how Lochte would be Phelps if Phelps wasn’t Phelps without one mention of Cseh’s name I am going to send a chair through my television set! Cseh is the forgotten man in this Olympic Games. Let’s see what has he done, silver in the 400 IM, if I am not mistaken beating Lochte, silver in the 200 fly, if I am not mistaken finishing as the second best performer of all time and tonight a silver in the 200 IM, once again if I am not mistaken beating Lochte. Cseh is the world record holder in the 400 IM short course, he was the bronze medalist in the 400 IM in the 2004 Olympics and is simply a great swimmer who is not getting his due. Before you tell me that Lochte was sick before his 400 IM and that he had to swim the 200 back before the 200 IM, it doesn’t matter, plain and simple you award an Olympic gold medal or Cseh’s case an Olympic silver medal to the person who, in Cseh’s case, was the second best in the world on that day. We don’t look back at the 400 IM in Athens and say Cseh deserves the silver medal because he broke his foot three weeks before the games. Why? Because Eric Vendt was the second best swimmer in the world that day, in that event, plain and simple. Now I am not saying that Lochte would not be the best swimmer in the world if Phelps wasn’t Phelps, simply because we will never know. Why? Because Phelps is Phelps! But to every North American commentator out there, every media type that are pumping out the story lines, please remember in every race that Phelps and Lochte have faced each other in there has been a twenty-two year old Hungarian with a shaved head keeping the Americans from being the first and second best swimmers in the world, in that event, on that day. Disclaimer Two – I must give Rowdy credit, in between bites of Doritos I did hear him say at one point – I think it may have been at the 100 meter mark when Cseh was only five one hundredths of a second behind Phelps – don’t forget about Cseh. Jeff Grace http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Jeff Grace/3581-the-forgotten-olympian Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:04:00 -0500 http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Garrett McCaffrey/3579-rewriting-the-record-books-one-day-at-a-time Of the 13 gold medals that the United States has claimed thus far in Beijing, ten of them hang around the neck of swimmers. Three of those were earned in today's finals session, as the US claimed three out of four championship races. Oh yeah, all three victories came in world record time. The first gold of the day was passed out Rebecca Soni who took down the breaststroke star from down-under in world record style ( 2:20.22 ) giving the American women their second gold of these games. Both girls were ahead of the WR line at the 150 but Leisol Jones was unable to keep up with Soni's last 50 and had to settle for silver (2:22.05). I think relief is the most accurate way to describe Ryan Lochte's reaction after he touched first in the 200 back (1:53.94). It's impossible not to root for a guy who goes after it every time like Lochte does. In the 400 IM his ballsy attack of Phelps on the third leg cost him the silver, but I wouldn't expect anything less. Today he made a choice on that last 50, where he split 28.88!, and no one in the world was going to beat him. I believed before this started that Michael Phelps would win eight gold medals. But I would have never predicted that he could claim eight world records on the way. He took any excitement out of the 200 IM final today in the third 50 as he pulled away from Hungry's Lazlo Cshe in route to a personal best aka another world record (1:54.23). Is it just me or does he seem ready for this to be over? I can't blame him at all. Imagine his routine: Warm-up pool to the competition pool, medal stand to warm-down pool and a following that would drive Britney Spears crazy every step of the way. It must be tough taking the entire sport on your back and bringing it to the next level. In the last final of the morning, the battle was fought in lanes 7 and 8 between Germany's Britta Steffen and Libby Trickett of Australia. Steffen turned 8th at the 50, seven spots behind the halfway leader Trickett. But when the waves settled on an incredible back half, Steffen claimed gold in an Olympic Record time of 53.12. Garrett McCaffrey http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Garrett McCaffrey/3579-rewriting-the-record-books-one-day-at-a-time Thu, 14 Aug 2008 23:04:00 -0500 http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Chris DeSantis/3568-bernards-redemption-and-other-beijing-tales No, I'm not in Beijing like my "friend" Garrett. I'm at home, just like most of you, watching the NBC telecast. Still, Garrett has only made his way into one session, so I decided I would recap last night's finals because essentially we saw the same thing. The only difference was that I had Rowdy and Dan Hicks and he had no idea what anyone was saying. The lead story was the big win by Alain Bernard. Bernard had it tough for a few days, weathering the media storm surrounding his comments and his last second loss to Jason Lezak. He traded the world record with Eamon Sullivan. Sullivan leaves the meet still the world record holder while Bernard has the gold medal. Its a question often posed which one of these two prizes an athlete would prefer. More often than not athletes would chose the gold medal and the everlasting glory it entails. Records are temporary and if the world record pace does not abate, Sullivan could become a memory by London. The Chinese women scored a decisive victory by sweeping the women's 200 fly. Had Liu ZIge been named Lynne Zieger and hailed from St Louis, Missouri, she would have been hailed just as Misty Hyman was in 2000. Their stories are similar, dropping an incredible amount of time in a short period and then rocketing past the Australian favorite for Olympic gold. Sadly, the majority of comments I have read have been thinly veiled allegations of PED use. While PED use has been well documented by the Chinese team in the very recent past, there exists little evidence as of now to point that finger. I have always maintained that performance alone should not preclude guilt. Kitajima won gold in the 200 breaststroke in a race that looked much closer than it actually was. He controlled the race from start to finish while a crew of swimmers battled for the medals behind him. As bitter as it might be for team USA fans, Kitajima has cemented himself as breaststroke's lone enduring champion. He is the first man to go back to back in either the 100 or 200. The shocker of the night was Trickett's near miss of the 100 freestyle final, saved only by a false start to Pang Jiaying. The entire semi-final, in fact, appeared quite sluggish and leaves me questioning whether we should have semi-final swims at all. For the most part the semi-finals have been the least exciting part of the entire Olympics. There have been exceptions such as the men's 100 free or women's 100 backstroke. For the most part, the contenders have been content to dial it back in semi-final action and seem to be trying to cut it as close as possible. The only other action we saw of the night were two semi-finals that didn't do a whole lot to clear up who will medal tonight. Lochte looked good swimming his double but did not go 100% in either race. Peirsol looks like a more solid bet than he did a month ago and will likely break the world record. Behind him I see three swimmers contending for the two remaining medals: Lochte, Rogan, and Irie. In the IM, Phelps should go mostly unchallenged. What remains to be seen is whether Cseh can have the kind of IM that he swam in the 400 here and beat Lochte. Others are close but I don't see them beating either of those two. The most remarkable aspect of this meet, a story we've been eagerly anticipating, is the reception of swimming. While it remains to be seen whether swimming can ride the Phelps wave over the next four years, one thing really stood out to me yesterday. I was watching Sportscenter, and Dwyane Wade and Lebron were being asked questions about Phelps after they attended a finals session. That the question was being asked at all was pretty unprecedented for our sport. Lets hope it doesn't stay that way. Chris DeSantis http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Chris DeSantis/3568-bernards-redemption-and-other-beijing-tales Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:42:00 -0500 http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Garrett McCaffrey/3542-making-the-world-record-line-look-average Do you think if I told the Chinese people guarding the gate to the Aqua Cube that I was from FINA and I had to re-measure the pool I could get on deck? Just kidding, but seriously. We just watched 11 swimmers (8 individuals plus 3 from the 4x200 relay) beat the world record line to the wall. 11. Its really tough for me to explain this to the non-swimmers I'm traveling with. Alain Bernard got this morning's party started by swimming the fastest time ever in the first semi-final heat of the 100 Free (47.20). But Eamon Sullivan made Bernard's reign on top of the world's record board a short one, by reclaiming his world record (47.05) in the second semi-final just minutes after Bernard. Are you ready for a sub 47 100 free? Sullivan appears to be. How fast was this session? In the second event, the women's 200 free, the world record line missed the medal stand. 3 women under the fastest time ever: Federica Pellegrini of Italy (1:54.82), Sara Isakovic of Slovakia (1:54.97), and Pang Jiayang of China (1:55.05). I agree that Phelps still has 2 huge obstacles ahead of him in the form of Ian Crocker and Ryan Lochte, but I still don't see him losing. 5 events, 5 golds, 5 world records. After claiming his 4th gold and WR in the 200 fly (1:52.03) I saw something I hadn't yet seen from boy wonder... fatigue. Thank goodness, the man is human. It's already arguably the greatest athletic performance ever. Seeing the emotion in his eyes on that medal stand may be the only thing that can rival the passion he shows in the relays. Here's a question for you statisticians out there: How many times has anyone set multiple world records in one session? For the second time in these games, Kirsty Coventry finished ahead of the previous world record but behind Steph Rice in the individual medley. This time it was the 200 version, Rice of Australia took the gold (2:08.45), Coventry of Zimbabwe took her 3rd silver so far (2:08.59), and Natalie Coughlin of the USA (2:10.34) touched out her teammate Katie Hoff (2:10.68) for the bronze. That was Hoff's second fourth place finish of the night, as she displayed our sport's endurance strength by swimming the 200 IM in the same session as the 200 free. I wanted to see Ryan Lochte do a flat start 200, but I can't argue with the coaching choice when that relay was over from the breakout. Having the two best swimmers in the world lead off the relay is a pretty powerful statement. Phelps, just minutes after the medal ceremony for the 200 fly, lead off with a dominating 1:43.31. Lochte put it completely our of reach with a 1:44.28. Ricky Berens swam an unchallenged 1:46.29, and Peter Vanderkaay punctuated the performance with an exclamating mark of 1:44.68. The closest challenger to the American men was the 7 minute mark, but even that proved to be an unworthy opponent as they finished with a time of 6:58.56, nearly 5 seconds under the previous WR of 7:03.24. How does this just keep getting better? Garrett McCaffrey http://www.floswimming.org/blogs/blogger/Garrett McCaffrey/3542-making-the-world-record-line-look-average Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:22:00 -0500