Thoughts from Pan Pacs Swimming - Day Two

Pan Pacs looks like a fun meet. Odd. But fun.

Let's get straight to Day Two's talking points...

- Natalie Coughlin looked supreme as she took victory in the women's 100m Free. The one thing she hasn't lost is her incredible skill on starts and turns. On the women's side, Coughlin remains the best underwater swimmer in the world. With Britta Steffen and Marleen Veldhuis out of action, the world's top two 100m Freestylers this year have been Ranomi Kromowidjojo and Fran Halsall. Coughlin looks like she's made it into a top three.

- Nathan Adrian continues to impress in the freestyle sprints winning in a time of 48.15. Last year Adrian got down to 48.00 at US Nationals. In Rome he made it to the semi-finals where he finished 10th in 48.13 behind Pan Pac swimmers such as Cesar Cielo, Nicolas Oliveira, Brent Hayden, David Walters and Lyndon Ferns. The tables have certainly been turned in 2010.

Brent Hayden was equally impressive with his time of 48.19. Cesar Cielo looks like his 50m Free is going to be a bit special splitting in 22.74 before running out of gas on the second 50m. Eamon Sullivan also went out quickly (22.89) before coming home 7th in 48.84. It's been a strange year for Sullivan, lets see what he can go at Commonwealths.

- Rebecca Soni's victory in the 100m Breast (1:04.93) wasn't just a sensational time, it was a statement. In the first head-to-head with Leisel Jones this year, Soni smoked the second 50m to pull clearly away from Jones. There wasn't much doubt before the meet that Soni is currently the best female breaststroker in the world, there can be none now.

Milestones from yesterday's swim

- 3rd fastest 100m Breaststroke of all-time (Soni now owns the second and third fastest times ever)
- Fastest time ever in a textile suit (beating Leisel Jones' 1:05.06)
- First woman under 1:05 in a textile suit
- Faster than Leisel Jones has ever been in the 100m Breast

The most exciting part.... Soni still has her best event, the 200m, still to come. Annamay Pierse's WR is under serious threat.

- Kosuke Kitajima is the best breaststroker in the world. Surprised?  Despite being slower in the final (59.35) than the heats (59.04), Kitajima was in complete control of the race and won comfortably. It went a little unnoticed but during the heats Kitajima broke Brendan Hansen's textile best time of 59.13. Again, that was during the heats.

- So after I crowned Caitlin Leverenz the best US female over 400m IM, I now have to eat my words and give the title back to Elizabeth Beisel. Like Kitajima, Beisel was slower in the final than the heats, but still dominated the race. To win Pan Pacs by 3 seconds is an impressive swim, even if the race was missing Steph Rice.

Beisel still needs to find a second to get past Hannah Miley's world leading time from Europeans (not fully tapered) which is starting to look more and more impressive.

- 2010's top male swimmer Ryan Lochte impressed again winning the 400m IM. This race was an example of the difference between how a race can look on TV and how it actually panned out. At US Nationals Tyler Clary was up on Lochte at 200m before Lochte blew past him on the Breast and Free. On the surface last night it looked like Lochte went out much faster than US Nationals on the Fly and Back legs (well ahead of Clary at 200m) before hanging on during the Breast and Free legs. The splits tell a different story though with Lochte faster on all 4 strokes last night. It was on Backstroke where the two splits were closest.

- Pan Pacs        4:07.59 - Fly - 54.83, Back - 1:01.90, Breast - 1:12.01, Free - 58.85
- US Nationals 4:09.98 - Fly - 55.95, Back - 1:02.11, Breast - 1:12.69, Free - 59.23

- Women's 50m Backstroke was interesting as it didn't feature a US female swimmer in the top 3 for the first time so far at 2010 Pan Pacs. The men have also had one race so far where a US swimmer didn't make it into the top 3, the men's 50m Butterfly on Day One.

- Junya Koga took Japan's second victory of the night in the men's 50m Backstroke in a time of 24.86. Not a bad time, but once again Camille Lacourt must be beaming when he sees that he is still 0.65 seconds clear of all Pan Pac swimmers this year over 50m. (The closest Pan Pac swimmer to Lacourt in 2010 is Matt Grevers who didn't make the US team).

- The women's 4 x 200m Free was much closer than expected. During prelims of the 200m Free, USA swimmers were ranked 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 8th. The Australian women were ranked 4th, 5th, 9th and 10th. Despite this going into the final leg Australia were ahead of the Americans by 0.13. Fortunately America could call on the individual 200m Free winner Allison Schmitt to avoid the upset.

- No such trouble for the US men who won the 4 x 200m Free relay by over 7 seconds from Japan. Their time was also nearly 3 seconds clear of Russia's best effort from the European Champs. That will happen when you have two guys swim 1:45 and the other two swim 1:46s.

Interestingly the US team were 5 seconds adrift of the WR they set in Beijing and then improved by a hundredth of a second last year in Rome. Whilst we are seeing that some individual world records should go over the next couple of years, the effect the suits had on the relay events hasn't been studied in detail. With the benefits the suits gave multiplied by four on a relay, these are records that we could be seeing for many years to come.

Thoughts from Pan Pacs Swimming - Day One

I won't be running through the top three of each event, if you want results check them out here. If you want to watch the races, see them here.

- I picked Yolane Kukla to win the 50m Butterfly, one spot ahead of Marieke Guehrer. I'm going to say I was half right. Kukla won the B final in 25.99, the exact same time that Guehrer won the A final in. Emily Seebohm took second in the A final just 0.09 behind Guehrer. At Pan Pacs where only 2 per nation can go into the A final and a third swimmer can only swim in the B final, the women's 50m Fly was as close to a 1-2-3 for Australia as we're going to see.

- Cesar Cielo looks like he's on form. He won the 50m Fly in a rapid 23.03 that also included a bit of a glide in to the wall. Cielo's finish had nothing on Roland Schoeman who took his last stroke with a good 3m still to swim. Good thing Schoeman has long arms.

Cielo's time must be making Fred Bousquet sit up and pay attention. Bousquet had been no.1 in the 50m Free with a time of 21.71 earlier this year. Cielo took that down a notch when he swam 21.55 in Paris in June before Bousquet turned in a stunning 21.36 at Europeans last week. Will we see the mantle of the world's best sprinter change hands once again at Pan Pacs?

- Pretty dominant win for Allison Schmitt on the 200m Free. Schmitt won silver last year at World's behind Federica Pellegrini and is now ranked second in the world this year behind Pellegrini (by a clear distance to Dana Vollmer in third). Is it safe to say now that she is the number two 200m Freestyler in the world?

Sidenote - Pleased to see Haruka Ueda make the 200m Free final as I have her pegged in for bronze on the 100m Free. Interesting fact about Ueda, last year at world's she was 30th in 55.91, this year she is already down to 54.87... suits, what suits?

- Stat-head's rejoice. Here's your virtual Ryan Lochte vs Paul Biedermann 200m Free race.

Despite the overall times coming up pretty close (just 0.17 seconds in it), both men swam the race very differently. Lochte got out a lot faster on the first 50, with both men swimming almost identical second 50s. Lochte made another strong move on the third 50 that broke the field in Irvine and was 0.3 seconds faster than Biedermann's third 50. On the way home though Lochte was hanging on whilst Biedermann was flying. Biedermann came home almost a second faster than Lochte. Just a shame we won't get to see Lochte v Biedermann (and ofcourse Phelps) this year. Both guys are big-time racers and you know that Lochte would have raised his game on the final 50 against the German, just as Biedermann wouldn't have let Lochte get so far ahead at 150m.

Lochte vs. Biedermann splits
Lochte         - 24.77, 51.65 (26.88), 1:18.12 (26.47), 1:45.30 (27.18)
Biedermann - 25.53, 52.37 (26.84) , 1:19.14 (26.77), 1:45.47 (26.33)


- Impressive swim by Emily Seebohm to win the 100m Back. Seebohm now has 3 of the top 4 swims in the world this year over 100m Back.

At 70m I thought Natalie Coughlin would hold on for victory, but she faded over the last metres. Still an awesome job in her first major international meet back after a year's break.


- Classic Peirsol swim. Wait until people start to write him off, rely on Ryan Lochte scratching the final to swim, then win the whole thing. There is one thing that does need to be brought up. This is the American team's big meet of the year and the backstroke boys have ended up well behind Camille Lacourt. Lacourt swam 1.2 seconds faster than Peirsol to win Europeans, almost breaking his WR in the process. Think Lacourt's swim was a one-off or a fluke? He's been faster than Peirsol's winning time 5 times this year.


Tough crowd for David Plummer, outstanding job to qualify for the final in a time of 53.33 which would have been good enough for second in the final. He couldn't quite match that in the evening finishing 5th in 53.80.


Quiz time - Who is the fastest American 100m Backstroker in 2010? Clue... He didn't qualify for the Pan Pac team.


- Great battle in the 200m Fly between Jessicah Schipper and Teresa Crippen. Both ladies went for it and were suffering in the last 5 metres. 3rd (Schipper) and 6th (Zsuzsanna Jakabos) in the world this year are separated by just 0.16 of a second. China's Jiao Liuyang is well out infront with an impressive 2:05.46

- Never thought I'd say this but..... sort your turns out Mike. Michael Phelps put up a much stronger showing in the 200m Fly at Pan Pacs than he did at US Nationals. It was the dominant win you expect everytime from Phelps over 200m Fly, but he still completely missed his first and third turns. 


- Epic battle on the women's 800m Free. Kate Ziegler, Chloe Sutton and Katie Goldman all held the lead at various points of the race but it was Ziegler's strong second half (out 4:11.4/back 4:10.1) that clinched it. The signs have been there for a while now but Ziegler is definitely back to her best form. Her time moves her to 2nd in the world this year, just behind Rebecca Adlington. Sutton also had a great swim to take her first international medal in the pool, one of many you suspect. Katie Goldman showed that she will be Rebecca Adlington's number one competitor at Commonwealths later this year.


- Ryan Cochrane was dominant on the 1500m Free. I'd be surprised if his time of 14:49 is bettered this year. Not sure what happened to Ous Mellouli. He trailed in last place in a time of 15:24. Mellouli's entered into the 10k open water, you hope endurance isn't his problem in California.

Pan Pacs Predictions

David 'The Swim Geek' Rieder has another prediction contest lined up for the upcoming Pan Pacific Champs which take place Aug 18th-Aug 22nd. Pysch Sheet - Here

Results - Here and Here

UPDATE - Table with all predictions can be found here.

During the last prediction contest for US Nationals I steered Speed Endurance to a second placed finish, this time I'm looking to go one better and take the top spot.

Those just missing out on a spot in the top 3 were... Zhang Lin - 200m Free, Nick Thoman - 100m Back, Eamon Sullivan Brent Hayden - 100m Free, Chang Gao - 100m Back, Satomi Suzuki - 100m Breast & Takuro Fujii - 100m Fly. On second thoughts, I can't leave Eamon Sullivan out of the 100m Free. Brent Hayden is arguably more consistent, but Sullivan has the talent to win this thing if he hooks it up right on the day.

Jessica Hardy is down to swim both the 100m Free and 100m Breast on Day Two. Swimming multiple finals didn't work out too well for her at Nationals so I am taking a leap of faith and assuming she qualifies for the 100m Free and decides to swim that as she has a better shot at Gold.

Hard to know what to make of the Chinese contingent. I'm picking Liu Zige to turn up and have a strong meet, despite spending 2010 under the radar. I don't care if she was wearing a rocket propelled suit, I'm picking the lady that's been 2:01.81 for 200m Fly.

Women's 50 Fly
1. Yolane Kukla
2. Marieke Guehrer
3. Christine Magnuson

Men's 50 Fly
1. Roland Schoeman
2. Geoff Huegill
3. Cesar Cielo

Women's 200 Free
1. Allison Schmitt
2. Dana Vollmer
3. Bronte Barratt

Men's 200 Free
1. Ryan Lochte
2. Tae Hwan Park
3. Peter Vanderkaay

Women's 100 Back
1. Emily Seebohm
2. Natalie Coughlin
3. Aya Terakawa

Men's 100 Back
1. Aaron Peirsol
2. Junya Koga
3. Ryosuke Irie

Women's 200 Fly
1. Liu Zige
2. Jessicah Schipper
3. Kathleen Hersey

Men's 200 Fly
1. Michael Phelps
2. Nick D'Arcy
3. Takeshi Matsuda

Women's 800 Free
1. Chloe Sutton
2. Katie Goldman
3. Kate Ziegler

Men's 1500 Free
1. Ous Mellouli
2. Ryan Cochrane
3. Chad LaTourette

Women's 100 Free
1. Dana Vollmer
2. Jessica Hardy
3. Haruka Ueda

Men's 100 Free
1. Cesar Cielo Filho
2. Nathan Adrian
3. Eamon Sullivan

Women's 100 Breast
1. Rebecca Soni
2. Leisel Jones
3. Ann Chandler

Men's 100 Breast
1. Kosuke Kitajima
2. Brenton Rickard
3. Ryo Tateishi

Women's 400 IM
1. Caitlin Leverenz
2. Arianna Kukors
3. Miho Takahashi

Men's 400 IM
1. Ryan Lochte
2. Michael Phelps
3. Yuya Horihata

Women's 50 Back
1. Aya Terakawa
2. Emily Seebohm
3. Sophie Edington

Men's 50 Back
1. Junya Koga
2. Guilherme Guido
3. Nick Thoman

Women's 4x200 Free
1. USA
2. Australia
3. Canada

Men's 4x200 Free
1. USA
2. Japan
3. Australia

Women's 400 Free
1. Katie Hoff
2. Bronte Barratt
3. Chloe Sutton

Men's 400 Free
1. Tae Hwan Park
2. Zhang Lin
3. Ous Mellouli

Women's 100 Fly
1. Jessicah Schipper
2. Liu Zige
3. Christine Magnuson

Men's 100 Fly
1. Michael Phelps
2. Andrew Lauterstein
3. Tyler McGill

Women's 200 Back
1. Belinda Hocking
2. Elizabeth Beisel
3. Shiho Sakai

Men's 200 Back
1. Ryosuke Irie
2. Ryan Lochte
3. Aaron Peirsol

Women's 50 Breast
1. Jessica Hardy
2. Rebecca Soni
3. Leisel Jones

Men's 50 Breast
1. Kosuke Kitajima
2. Felipe Silva
3. Brenton Rickard

Women's 4x100 Free
1. USA
2. Australia
3. Canada

Men's 4x100 Free
1. USA
2. Australia
3. South Africa

Men's 800 Free
1. Ous Mellouli
2. Ryan Cochrane
3. Peter Vanderkaay

Women's 200 IM
1. Ariana Kukors
2. Emily Seebohm
3. Caitlin Leverenz

Men's 200 IM
1. Ryan Lochte
2. Michael Phelps
3. Thiago Pereira

Women's 50 Free
1. Kara Lynn Joyce
2. Yolane Kukla
3. Jessica Hardy

Men's 50 Free
1. Cesar Cielo Filho
2. Nathan Adrian
3a. Josh Schneider protest pick
3b. Roland Schoeman

Women's 200 Breast
1. Rebecca Soni
2. Leisel Jones
3. Annamay Pierse

Men's 200 Breast
1. Ryo Tateishi
2. Brenton Rickard
3. Eric Shanteau

Women's 1500 Free
1. Melissa Gorman
2. Kristel Kobrich
3. Kate Ziegler

Women's 4x100 Medley
1. USA
2. Australia
3. Japan

Men's 4x100 Medley
1. USA
2. Japan
3. Australia

Women's OW 10km
1. Chloe Sutton
2. Eva Fabian
3. Melissa Gorman

Men's OW 10km
1. Fran Crippen
2. Ous Mellouli
3. Allan Carmon

Thoughts from US Nationals Day Two

Day Two at US Nationals can be summed up in one word... 'odd'.

The two oddest moments from last night

1. Victory in the Men's 100m Backstroke goes to.... David Plummer?

This was billed as THE race of this competition. It had been the subject of more hype than any other. Natalie Coughlin's return to competition, Phelps coming back from defeat in the 200m Free last year, Ryan Lochte's new shoes .... nothing could compete with the prospect of the 100m Back final at US Nationals possibly being stronger than any other 100m Back race in the world this year.

The stage was set. One of the greatest backstrokers of all-time, Aaron Peirsol, had struggled all year, but in typical fashion returned to form just before the meet started. Nick Thoman broke the Short Course World Record at Duel in the Pool and was considered the heir apparent to Peirsol's throne. Uber-talented Matt Grevers swam 53.05 back in March at the Austin Grand Prix off a short taper. Peirsol, Thoman and Grevers were clear favourites but with Ryan Lochte possibly competing and Randall Bal, David Russell, Ben Hesen and NCAA Champ Eugene Godsoe threatening the race had some interesting possible connotations.

The one guy who seemingly didn't get a mention, David Plummer from Minnetonka Swim Club, upset them all. It was a fantastic job by Plummer. 53.60 is a world class time and he took his opportunity superbly.

Two questions. Why was Grevers nearly a second down on his time from the Austin Grand Prix? Will Liam Tancock's 52.85 time from British Nationals still be top of the world rankings following Europeans & Pan Pacs?


2. What happened to Michael Phelps on the 200m Fly?

Phelps was visibly 'off' during his 200m Fly. His start was poor (anytime you see him come up alongside his competitors you know its gone badly wrong). His first turn was average. His second turn was shocking and the third turn wasn't much better. For Phelps a time of 1:56.00 is pedestrian at best.

Mel Stewart summed it up best during commentary - 'I bet he's done that in practice before'. One question a lot of people want to know is how many practices has Phelps been to this year?

It was a strange night for Phelps. He turned it on in the 200m Free. 1:45.61 is a quality swim and notably is the fastest in the world this year so far, but for Ryan Lochte to get so close to Phelps was interesting. One of Phelps' biggest strengths is his ability to recover during a session. That 200m Free really took a toll on Phelps and he admitted as much during the post race interview after the 200m Fly.



Fortunately Natalie Coughlin was there to offer some normality to the evening's proceedings with victory in the 100m Back. She just doesn't lose this event at US Nationals. Elizabeth Pelton finished fourth and really needs to find her best form on the 200m Back if she's going to qualify for Pan Pacs.


For anyone interested in the prediction contest, I'm sitting in second right now. My plan is to do an Allison Schmitt, hang with the early pace before edging ahead on the final run in....

1. Reed 107
2. Tom (SpeedEndurance) 100
3. David "THE Swim Geek" Rieder 98
4. G. John 88
4. Matt 88
6. Rob 83
7. John 81
8. Andy 80
9. Chris "TAKE THAT!" DeSantis 73
9. Braden 73
11. Jerry 70

US Nationals - Predictions Contest

Recap of all the participants taking part in the US Nationals Predictions Challenge.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AmKNofXojGLrdDE3bTRZRWM2Y3VlRjFsVjh1RDRDZkE&hl=en&single=true&gid=0&output=html

Feeling pretty good about my picks.

Surprised I was the only one picking NCAA champ Ann Chandler to medal on the 100m Breast. She was dominant at NCAA's and should be primed to step up over LC meters. I was also the only one to pick Chloe Sutton to win the 400m Free. I know Katie Hoff is having a resurgent year and is the fastest ranked American this year, but Sutton has already beaten her on the Grand Prix circuit. I think Sutton has more to offer in this event and (provided her turns have improved) could post a 4:04-4:05 time. I also expect good things from Justine Mueller on the 200m IM, but couldn't bring myself to put her ahead of Kukors, Smit or Hoff. The women's 200m IM is stacked.

I salute Braden Keith for choosing Matt Grevers to win the 100m Back. I have him a close second behind Peirsol... Not too sure about picking Eugene Godsoe to finish third though.

Live Results - Here