Fran Crippen R.I.P.

 

Fran Crippen (1984-2010) 

FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup - Singapore

Top swims from the Singapore leg of the FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup:-

Thiago Pereira - 200m IM - 1:53.45 - 951 Points - Game over for the overall men's point title. Pereira has now notched up the maximum available 75 points from the first three legs of the World Cup series. He leads Darian Townsend by 36 points with just four legs remaining. With Pereira scheduled to compete in each of the remaining stops on the tour, the only viable way for him to be overhauled is if world records start dropping, and Pereira has been the only man this year to threaten a world mark. Pereira's time of 1:53.45 improved upon the time set a few days previously in Beijing, but was 0.73 down on his world leading time from Rio.

One of the races to look forward to at the World Shortcourse Champs will be Pereira v Ryan Lochte. It might also be the race that sees 2010's first World Record go down. Darian Townsend's 1:51.55 might be within the reach of Pereira. It's definitely within reach for Lochte.

Therese Alshammar - 100m Butterfly - 56.32 - 934 Points - Game over for the overall women's point title. Ok... Alshammar doesn't have the title sown up to the same degree as Pereira has, however by taking 25 points in Singapore (total of 55 for the series) she has gone a long way towards making it a formality reality. Her closest rival is Julia Smit, who is back on 30 points. At this stage Alshammar just needs to score consistently in the last four rounds to wrap up the points title. Ominously for her rivals, the Swedish sprint queen is also getting faster round by round (57.04 in Rio, 56.80 in Beijing, 56.32 in Singapore).

Julia Smit - 200m IM - 2:08.14 - 919 Points - I wrote back in August, that until Julia Smit proves otherwise, I'm marking her down as a short course specialist. After a swift 2:08 in Singapore I haven't changed my opinion. She is now ranked third in the world, just half a second behind Australians Emily Seebohm and Kotuku Ngawati. This year Smit also broke the NCAA & American record in the 200yd IM but has only been able to manage a 2:12.5 in LC metres (22nd in the world this year, 8th fastest American). With the domestic competition so fierce in the 200m IM, Smit is going to need to improve in a LC pool if she is going to make future national teams.

Natalie Coughlin - 100m Backstroke - 57.78 - 873 Points - Coughlin was victorious on her return to short course swimming, a discipline she dominated for most of the last decade. Her time of 57.78 is off her very best from 2008 (56.51), but represents a successful return. Emily Seebohm leads the world on an impressive 56.58. Gao Chang (57.45) and Belinda Hocking (57.67) have also been faster than Coughlin's time this year. The 100m Backstroke should be a fantastic race in Dubai and Coughlin will need to get back down to her best time or better to stand a chance. With the quality of her starts and turns, I would find it hard to bet against her.

If you've read down this far, you're probably a pretty big fan of swimming. If that is the case, check out Fantasy Swimming. You pick the Top 3 swimmers per event and get points for each correct selection. They have the remaining legs of the World Cup available to make your picks, as well as Short Course Worlds.

Poll Result - Who will win the Men's 200m IM at the 2012 London Olympics?

Speed Endurance readers, possibly the world's foremost collection of swimming experts, have spoken...

Ryan Lochte will win the 200m IM at London 2012. 

Note this down. With the collective knowledge and brain power on hand, this is as close to a guarantee as possible.

Lochte and Michael Phelps were locked in a close race for the duration of the vote. Phelps initially led, before a strong surge in support for Lochte took him away. Lochte's lead stretched out to 13 votes at one point before a late Phelps push closed the gap to 8 votes.

This has every chance of being the race of the 2012 Olympics (I'm not limiting that statement to just Swimming either). Lochte v Phelps. The two biggest stars of male swimming.

Here's how their best times match up:-

Lochte 2010- Fly - 24.86 - Back - 28.42 -Breast - 33.41 - Free- 27.70 - 1:54.43 (in Jammers)
Lochte 2009 - Fly - 24.72 - Back -28.48 - Breast -33.08 - Free -27.82 - 1:54.10
Phelps 2008 - Fly - 24.59 - Back -28.81 - Breast -33.50 - Free -27.33 - 1:54.23


If you break it down by stroke, Phelps has an advantage on Fly, Lochte has a stronger Back.
Breaststroke and Freestyle are harder to split. It would appear Lochte has the upper hand at the moment on Breaststroke, whilst on Freestyle, Phelps has stronger splits, but Lochte is currently the world's fastest over 200m Free. As is so often the case in Medley races, Breaststroke looks like it will be the pivotal stroke in 2012.

Results
Ryan Lochte - 82 votes (50.9%)
Michael Phelps - 74 votes (46.0%)
James Goddard - 3 votes (1.9%)
Tyler Clary - 1 vote (0.6%)
Laszlo Cseh - 1 vote (0.6%)

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FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup - Beijing

The two days of swimming at the FINA/ARENA World Cup in Beijing have produced some outstanding times.


Some of the highlights below:-

Thiago Pereira - 200m IM - 1:54.21 - 932 Points. Pereira took another maximum 25 points from Beijing to match his 25 from Rio. With a full 50 points from the first two legs and due to compete at all the remaining legs of the World Cup, the competition for this year's World Cup prize for top male point scorer might just be over. One possible cause for concern is the difference in time (1.49 seconds) from his win in Rio (1:52.72) and Beijing (1:54.21).

Darian Townsend - 200m IM - 1:54.26 - 931 Points. Pereira only just held on to win the 200m IM from Townsend. At 150m Pereira was 1.44 seconds up on Townsend but only finished 0.05 seconds ahead of the South African. The two are due to go head to head again in Singapore this weekend and if Townsend can get even closer at the 150m we might see these positions reversed.

Gao Chang - 26.00 - 50m Back - 966 Points. The top scoring swim of the meet came from Gao in the 50m Back. It becomes the 5th fastest all time performance over 50m Back and is just 0.3 seconds shy of Sanja Jovanovic' World Record of 25.70. The Chinese Backstroker is putting together a strong 2010, she's now ranked No.1 in the world for LC and SC 50m Back and is 6th in the world in the LC 100m Back rankings with the Asian Games still to come this year.

Liu Jing - 400m Free - 4:00.55 - 931 Points. Liu Jing took the maximum available 25 points with victory in the women's 400m Free. She becomes the 16th fastest all-time performer in the event. Still a long way behind Laure Manaudou's textile best time of 3:56.09 though. (Manaudou's time from 2007 is one of the most impressive short course swims ever, despite being set before the suit era, it remains the third fastest swim ever).

Therese Alshammar - 56.80 - 100m Fly - 910 Points. Alshammar suddenly looks a little vulnerable in the race for the women's top points scorer. Despite winning the 100m Fly in an excellent time of 56.80, Alshammar was only able to pick up 5 points. Fortunately for the Swedish sprint star, not one of the Chinese women who finished ahead of Alshammar in the points in Beijing will be competing at the next stop in Singapore. Hinkelein Schreuder is the only other woman to have scored points from the first two World Cup legs and she sits 17 points back of Alshammar.

Ye Shiwen - 400m IM - 4:28.67 - 917 Points/53.66 - 100m Free - 859 Points. 14 year old Ye Shiwen continued to impress in 2010 with a particularly impressive 400m IM swim. Trailing World Record holder Julia Smit for most of the race, Ye put in a devastating freestyle split of 58.97. Smit led by 2.08 seconds at 300m but could only manage a freestyle leg of 1:01.30 to take second in 4:28.92.

Ye Shiwen's time is all the more impressive as it came on the same evening as her victory in the 100m Free in a time of 53.66. Clearly a special talent.

Ye Shiwen's swims will come under scrutiny. Some people will doubt her times and suspect that to acheive so much at such a young age, she must be doped... strange that Yolane Kukla, just turned 15, Yannick Agnel, Vlad Morozov, Bence Biczo etc don't receive the same scepticism. I suspect this will come to the fore when the Asian Games are upon us, where I predict China will set a number of world leading times... Remember - All athletes should be innocent until proven guilty.

Full Results - Here
Men's Overall Points Leaderboard - Here
Women's Overall Points Leaderboard - Here

FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup - Singapore 16-17 October

 

The third leg of the FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup takes place in Singapore (16-17 October) with arguably the best field so far this year.

All eyes will be on Natalie Coughlin (USA) who makes her return to short course metre competition. Coughlin has been in good form so far in 2010 and with her world class starts and turns, expect some fast swimming from the American ace. Also representing a strong USA squad will be Jessica Hardy, Randall Bal, Peter Marshall, Julia Smit, Elaine Breeden and Madison Kennedy.

A host of medal winners from the recent Commonwealth Games will also be on show. Australia's team includes medalists Leisel Jones, Marieke Guehrer, Hayden Stoeckel and James Richardson. South Africa are also sending a strong team led by Roland Schoeman, Cameron Van Der Burgh, Lyndon Ferns, Darian Townsend, Graemme Moore and Kathryn Meaklim. Canada's team includes Victoria Poon, Genevieve Saumur and Audrey Lacroix as well as seasoned IM swimmer Brian Johns.

Europe has a number of medal contenders competing with strong challenges likely to come from Therese Alshammer, Stefan Nystrand, Lars Frolander (SWE),Dominik Meichtry (CHE), Steffen Deibler, Dorothea Brandt, Jenny Mensing, Kerstin Vogel (GER), Hanna Maria Seppala (FIN), Hinkelein Schreuder (NED), Arkady Vyatchanin, Grigory Falko and Sergey Fesikov (RUS).

Results & Start Lists - Here
Official Site - Here
For anyone in Singapore - Tickets can be found here

FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup - Beijing

Action gets underway today at the FINA/ARENA Swimming World Cup 2010 in Beijing. The competition sees the return of international competition to one of the most iconic swimming pools in the world, the watercube.

Fresh from competing at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, South Africa have taken a strong team with their star swimmers Lyndon Ferns, Cameron Van Der Burgh, Roland Schoeman and Darian Townsend all competing. I'm sure they will be hoping for a more straight forward competition after the problems in India with Delhi Belly and the uproar caused by comments by Roland Schoeman, seemingly taken way out of context.

Other stars on display include Thiago Pereira, Guilherme Guido, Henrique Barbosa (BRA), Therese Alshammer, Lars Frolander (SWE), Steffen Deibler, Dorothea Brandt, Jenny Mensing (GER), Elaine Breeden, Peter Marshall, Julia Smit (USA), Arkady Vyatchanin, Grigory Falko, Sergey Fesikov (RUS), Gao Chang, Ye Shiwen (CHN), Hinkelein Schreuder (NED), Naoya Tomita (JAP)

Results & Start Lists - Here

UPDATE - First day finals recap - Here

Top point scorers from Day One
Women - Gao Chang - 50m Backstroke - 26.00 (966 points) Great time! Just missed Sanja Jovanovic' World Record of 25.70. More proof that the change of suits has affected Backstroke less than the other strokes.
Men - Naoya Tomita - 200m Breaststroke - 2:05.30 (893 points) Solid effort from Tomita, however I expect that points total to be beaten tomorrow. In Rio, Thiago Pereira led the men with 969 points for his 1:52.72 200m IM.

Thoughts from Commonwealth Games Swimming - Day Four

Excellent night of swimming in Delhi tonight. The 'Big Four'(Australia, England, Canada and South Africa) all came away with one gold each. Lets dig a little deeper...

. Brace yourselves, things are about to get controversial... Right now, Brent Hayden is the world's best sprinter.

- I know, I know. What about Nathan Adrian. Cesar Cielo. Fred Bousquet. Alex Popov. Matt Biondi. Johnny Weissmuller. Let me explain why...

David Rieder got the discussion up and running after his claim that Adrian deserved the recognition as the world's best sprinter. His argument was that although Adrian wasn't ranked first in either event in the world rankings, his high ranking in both was unmatched. Not a terrible argument at the time, but it didn't sit well with me. I believe to be classed as the world's best sprinter, you should be a) leading the world in one or both of the 50m and 100m Freestyle and (less importantly) b) have won an individual Gold in a major championship.

Hayden has now done both and should put this issue to bed (until someone goes even faster) after winning gold in the 100m Free final. His 47.98 tonight was superb becoming the first man under 48 seconds this year. He is also the first man to break 48 seconds in a jammer, a fact he is fully aware of after mentioning it in his interview with the BBC... (The fastest time in a textile suit remains Peter VDH's 47.84 set in legs at the 2000 Olympics). 

The 50m Free is still to come, and its fair to expect Hayden to improve upon his 21.89 set at Pan Pacs (Delhi Belly permitting). My prediction 21.59, Gold.

. Staying with the 100m Free, I wonder whether Delhi 2010 will go down as the meet that marked the return of Simon Burnett as a force in international swimming once again. Talent is certainly not a problem for Burnett, the fact that he remains the NCAA record holder for 200m Free (1:31.20), even after the suit era, attests to that.

2010 has been a good year so far for the Tuscon Ford swimmer with a strong showing at Europeans and now an excellent silver in Delhi (taking the notable scalp of Eamon Sullivan). However, there is still a way to go to fully catch up with the guys eating at the top table in the 50m and 100m Free (Hayden, Cielo, Adrian, Phelps, Bousquet).

Mark Foster gave his opinion on why Burnett has been slightly off form for the last few years. Foster believes that Burnett's problem lay in the fact that after leaving university and swimming full time, as an intelligent guy, he didn't have enough to occupy his mind. Interesting theory. (If you missed the charity Burnett mentioned during his BBC interview you can find out about it Here).

. The only choice for breakout (and star) performer of the meet so far is Alicia Coutts. She continued her incredible competition by picking up the 100m Fly in 57.53 to add to her victories in the 100m Free and 200m IM. The time moves Coutts up to 5th in the world this year, one spot behind Fran Halsall's 57.40, untapered, at Europeans.

Such a shame we didn't get to see a fit Halsall go up against Coutts.

. Nice swim from Rebecca Adlington. She got herself into a dominant position early on and kept the distance to the chasing pack at a comfortable(ish) margin. After the race she spoke about the importance of winning, with the time being less important. She also mentioned that she was conserving some energy for the 400m Free.

From a British perspective it is great to see Becky win her first major 800m Free victory since Beijing, which should lift a weight from her shoulders. The 800m Free remains her best event and on form she remains the world's best.

For Adlington, 2009 was a challenging year, 2010 has been a rebuilding year, 2011 looks like being a stronger, 2012 will  be a .......... year. (Fill in the gap)

Thoughts from Commonwealth Games Swimming - Day Three

The home nations couldn't build upon yesterday's success as Australia dominated. Six Golds for the Aussies tonight, one for England, one for South Africa and one for Kenya. In short, the rest of the Commonwealth got pumped. On a day like today you need to tip your hat (preferably whilst listening to Men At Work). Results Here (Tip - To get the results in easy to read spreadsheet form, go to the Reports column on the right hand side and select Event Related -> Results).

. Both Aussie 4 x 200m relays dominated as expected. However, for all those who wondered what would have happened if Britain swam as a team... here's your answer:-


Women

Australia
Kylie Palmer - 1:58.51
Blair Evans - 1:57.47
Bronte Barratt - 1:58.33
Meagen Nay - 1:59.40
Final time - 7:53.71

Britain's fastest 4
Jo Jackson - 1:59.06
Rebecca Adlington - 1:59.68
Jazmin Carlin - 1:59.39
Sasha Matthews - 1:59.08
Final time - 7:57.21

On paper, a British team would have just pipped New Zealand for silver, but would have still been a long back of Australia.

Men

Australia
Thomas Fraser Holmes - 1:47.04 (Great swim. Would have won the individual 200m Free by an astonishing 0.84 seconds... also the fastest leg of the entire event despite going first)
Nick Ffrost - 1:48.68
Ryan Napoleon - 1:47.05
Kenrick Monk - 1:47.52
Total Time - 7:10.29

Britain
Andrew Hunter - 1:48.32
David Carry - 1:48.00
Robbie Renwick - 1:47.38
Robert Bale - 1:48.12 (led off the relay in 1:48.72, I've taken off 0.6 for the takeover)
Total Time - 7:11.82

This would have been a closer race with Bale's inclusion, but a second and a half is still a comfortable margin of victory. This is all virtual and doesn't take into account race conditions, but whichever way you look at it, the Aussies were dominant.

. Top swim from James Goddard tonight. 1:55.58 is a great time and puts Goddard ahead of Aaron Peirsol and Michael Phelps this year. However, it also puts Ryan Lochte's 1:54.12 into perspective. Delving back into the virtual world, Goddard would have been several metres behind Lochte had they been in the same race.

. Congratulations to Jason Dunford for winning Kenya's first ever swimming Gold medal. Yes he is a product of English and American training, but it a fantastic acheivement all the same. You hope its received well back in Kenya and inspires a generation of youngsters to have a go at swimming.

I'm pleased for Dunford but would have loved to see Geoff Huegill win gold to cap what is already an incredible comeback. I don't think the sport of swimming has ever seen a comeback like this one. The guy lost 45-50kg. Now that is a movie, waiting to be made...

. We've had three days of competition and I think its fair to say that the swimming has been slower than expected. This is the main meet of the year, but many swimmers are failing to beat their seasons bests from untapered meets. It will be very interesting to see what filters through once the meet is finished but at this point I'm putting it down to one, or a combination, of these factors:-

Delhi Belly - A lot of cases of stomach upsets emerging. At a major meet any type of sickness can be disastrous. The physical effects are clear enough, but mentally too it puts you 'off your game'. Such a shame to train all year for a competition, with funding levels riding on it in the case of the British swimmers, and not be able to perform at your best because of sickness.

4am wake ups and 40 minute bus rides to and from the pool - If there is ever a sub-species of human that are used to waking up early, it is Homo Aquaticus (swimmers), however, not when they are competing. Its a tough ask to wake up that early, swim heats and then get back up for finals.

Slow Pool - Whether you believe it or not, swimmers believe in slow and fast pools. Sometimes there is a science behind it (depth of water, deck level pools etc.), other times a pool just won't feel right. If any swimmers have it in their heads that the Delhi pool is slow, performance will drop.

. If the pool is slow... how can you explain Alicia Coutt's 2:09.70 200m IM and Goddards 1:55.58 200m Back?

. Final point. Aussie turns. Better than all other nations competing in Delhi.

Maybe I will start a new feature....

SpeedEndurance World Rankings for Starts & Turns

1. USA
2. Australia
3. Japan
4. France
5. Rest of the world