Late Night Snack: Wait, there's more!!!

Yes swim fans, just when you thought it was safe to return to your job, your family and your friends remember Nats start on Tuesday!  That's right folks, your National Team will stumble into the Avery Aquatic Center in Stanford jet-lagged, disoriented and exhausted.  I expect Ryan Lochte to sit his ass down, open a huge bag of In n Out, crack open a case of Bud and order Coach Troy to scratch everything.  At least Coughlin and Phelps had the wherewithal to just go home.  Our very own Chris DeSantis will also be on scene without the distraction of Team Denmark.

Here's the psych sheet:  http://www.usaswimming.org/_Rainbow/Documents/26b81e02-e130-480b-8e0a-ddeafd6d832b/psych%20sheets_11Nats.pdf

The Viking takes a break and the whole world of swimming falls apart...

Michael's painful secret is out... his ass has dyslexia.

Dang, guys... the Viking gets too busy to blog for a week or two and everything seems to go crazy. (I haven't had time to even follow world championship results for that matter-- yes, feel sorry for me.) A partial list of what I found when trying to catch up on some of the old news I missed?: Mark Schubert got hired at a juco, they announced they are thinking about bringing body suits back in 2013, they let Cielo swim and he cried and pee'd everywhere all the time (you know, because that is what furosemide makes you do,) Chris DFLSantis made a crazy call about Dale Oen winning the breast and was actually right, more breaststrokers were caught on video cheating with dolphin kicks again, open water swimmers were withdrawing from their races, and now Phelps is swimming for Australia.

What?... Phelps is changing his citizenship?

Shanghai Day 7: Don't Cry For Me

Well, I guess there was no avoiding it. After the top swimmer in the 50 free from 2010 (Fred Bousquet) missed out on the final we all knew where we were headed. Most notably, Nathan Adrian was far off where he was in Irvine. Cielo won handily, then shocked the onlooking crowd by quickly drawing a syringe and plunging it into his left bicep with a primal scream. I made up one of the two statements in the last sentence. Let's look at the rest of day 7 finals:

Is it time to start officially calling them "Textile World Records?"

Ryan deserves more credit for this one than he is gonna get.

After watching the replay of Ryan Lochte absolutely destroying the textile world best in the 200 back, I am a little saddened that we haven’t done anything official to recognize those achievements other than saying “while it is not a world record… it is a textile best.”  Just listen to the commentators.  It sounds like a let-down when they justify that the record he was chasing was "really fast."

He took it from a 1:54.0 to a 1:52.9. Before the days of tech suits we would have had our minds blown by that swim. It should be remembered in the same way that Mary T. Meagher was for being the first under 59 in the fly but skipping the 58’s completely in the process by hammering out a 57.93.  If not for the tech years, our world record progression might never have listed a 1:53! Instead of being a dominating swim that changed the face of backstroke forever, it is really something we could pass off as a “pretty good try” in comparison to the 200 IM, a swim where he has his rival Michael Phelps within a tenth of a second of him. Yes, it was a true world record, but it was not nearly the dominant performance that the backstroke was. Lochte owned that 200 back. He is in completely uncharted territory with that swim, except… oh yeah, it’s not a world record.

Shanghai Day 6: Another Great Day For Denmark

In other breaking news, Jeannette Ottesen is both TALL and BLOND. More to follow

Don't like overly patriotic Danish swimming coverage? Then go to another blog. The lead story for me in this morning/night final was Jeanette Ottesen of Denmark finishing in a tie for first in the women's 100 free. This makes two (!!!!) freestyle events where the Kingdom of Denmark is now faster than the United States with a third possible, despite the US's 60:1 population advantage and countless other resources. Here are my other thoughts from tonight's finals:

Live Pre-Meet Show 8:30 EST!

We'll be live from 8:30-9. Afterwards check back for a recording of what we discussed!

Swimgating Shanghai: Day 6

Before I say anything else- thank you for all those who joined Braden Keith AND THE ONE AND ONLY GARRETT MCCAFFREY and I yesterday for a live pre-meet show. We will be doing the same tonight at 8:30 pm et and we will commentate LIVE over finals at 6 am et on Friday.

I've now played this swimgating theme out far enough that I feel fairly ridiculous, almost like I am Brian Fantana trying to bring extra gravitas to a news story about a panda:



PANDA WATCH. Let's talk about Day 6 prelims: