Indy Grand Prix - Ryan won the 200m back on Saturday & tied for 1st in 100m back on Friday

This is Ryan after tonight's 200m back. He looked so tired! Nevertheless he had a fantastic meet.

On Friday, Ryan tied for 1st with Matt Grevers in the 100m back. Ryan's time was 54.08. He said it was his best time "in season" by nearly 1 second. I checked and last year in February 2010 at the Missouri GP Ryan's time in the 100m back was 54.81. He didn't swim it last year in Charlotte (in the finals) and at Santa Clara he was 55 seconds. A 54.08 is fantastic. Here's the post-race interview (starts at about 6:18).

Also on Friday Ryan swam in the "B" final of the 50m free. He finished 13th overall with a time of 23.39.

On Saturday, Ryan swam three races back-to-back-to-back. He started off in the 200m IM. He finished second to Michael Phelps. MP's time was 1:56.88, fastest time in the world this year. So fast. Ryan's time was 1:59.19. It's good for him to be under 2 minutes this time of year.

Ryan's next race was the 200m back, which he won by more than 1 second, with a time of 1:57.63.

Ryan's final race tonight was the 100m free. Ryan finished 12th overall (4th in the "B" final) with a time of 50.78. MP won the "A" final with a time of 48.89, another incredible time for him.

Ryan looked so tired after the 200m back that I am surprised he was able to even swim the 100m free. I'm really happy he went through with his triple tonight. As Ryan has said in the past, he needs to practice doing multiple events if he is going to do it at Olympic trials. I'm still holding out for him swimming some combination of the 200m free, 100m back and 100m free at trials, and they are all right on top of each other in the beginning of the week. Of course there is also the 200m back/200m IM double later in the week at trials.

I will post race videos for the 200m IM and 200m back once they are up at usaswimming.org. Here is the video for the 100m back from Friday. Of course it is only a link because Universal Sports STUPIDLY doesn't allow embedding. I say stupidly because they would get a lot more views if they let fan blogs like this one embed their videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODvY0QKl74Q

Ryan did well in Saturday's prelims, making the A finals in both the 100m fly and the 200m back and making the B final in the 50m free.  

In the 100 fly he finished 4th, with a time of 54.82.  The top 7 qualifiers in this event were within 1 second of each other.  It should be an exciting final.

Ryan also finished 4th in the 200 back, with a time of 2:02.57.  That's about what his prelim time was at the Ultraswim (I think), so that is pretty good.  It will be interesting to see how he does in the finals.

In the 50 free Ryan finished tied for 12th with a time of 23.68.  All of the top 18 qualifiers were very close and other than Nathan Adrian's 22.5, which was the fastest prelim time, only .78 seconds separates the 2nd fastest from the 18th fastest qualifier.  

Finals tonight at 5 p.m. PDT.  Watch live and get live results at www.swimnetwork.com

 

Santa Clara GP - Friday Finals & Saturday Prelims

Friday Finals - 200m Free

Ryan finished 4th in the 200m free with a time of 1:49.80.  Kendrick Monk of Australia placed first in 1:49.29, followed by Nimro Shapira Bar-Or in 2nd with a time of 1:49.33 and Ricky Berens in 3rd with a time of 1:49.44.  Close race.  

A race video is posted on www.swimnetwork.com, but I couldn't get it to play.  As soon as it works I will post a link.

Friday Finals - 200m Fly

Ryan placed 5th in the 200m fly with a time of 2:03.20.  In 1st was Ka Marcio De Almeida with a time of 1:56.94, 2nd was Stefan Hirniak with a time of 1:59.74, 3rd was David Mosko with a time of 2:00.79 and 4th was Mark Dylla with a time of 2:01.14.

A video of the race can be watched here:  http://www.swimnetwork.com/Multimedia/Media-Center.aspx#/id=e074c556-3e88-48d0-ac49-be29bc4b941f

Saturday Prelims - 100m Fly, 200m Back and 50m Free

Live results have not been updated.  I will change add information once the live results are updated.  I did hear that Ryan swam prelims in all 3 events.  No scratches so far.