Because NBC didn't have time to show it.....

the medal ceremony for the men's 4 x 100 free relay.



thanks to Italian tv for showing it and the Daily Reezy for posting it.

Completely unexpected!

The U.S. not only won the 4 x 100 free relay, but Ryan was a huge part of the winning effort. His split was 47.03, his best 100 free time ever by more than a second. I'm really happy that not only was he part of this relay for the first time, but the result was a gold medal....a completely unexpected gold medal. I only hope the rest of the meet goes this well for Ryan.

The splits for the US team were as follows:

PHELPS Michael 0.72 22.93 47.78 (3) 47.78
LOCHTE Ryan 0.10 22.30 47.03 (3) 1:34.81
GREVERS Mattew 0.22 22.28 47.61 (2) 2:22.42
ADRIAN Nathan 0.25 22.23 46.79 (1) 3:09.21

Here's a link to the Universal Sports video of a portion of the race....Michael Phelps' lead-off leg and the finish. Ryan swam second so you can see him diving in right after Phelps finished.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX1PiChUJkM

Here are two videos of Ryan speaking at the press conference after the race. I still can't believe he raced the great Alain Bernard and did so well. Bernard's split was 46.46, the fastest time out of every swimmer, but Ryan held his own against him.





Finally, Ryan comments on FINA's decision to ban technology suits starting in 2010.



Thanks so much to Reezy Daily for uploading the videos.

Ryan does not swim again until Wednesday. His schedule for the rest of the meet is:

Wednesday, July 29
200m IM
prelims and semi-finals

Thursday, July 30
200m Back
prelims and semi-finals
200m IM
finals

Friday, July 31
4 x 200m Free Relay
prelims and finals
200m Back
finals

Sunday, August 2
400m IM
prelims and finals

Charlotte Ultraswim Psyche Sheet - Finally some actual Ryan Lochte swimming to write about (plus a bonus workout video)

The psyche sheet for the Charlotte Ultraswim has been released.  There are so many great U.S. and foreign swimmers entered that, although it is doubtful anyone will be rested, it looks like this meet is going to be almost as good as the U.S. nationals.

http://www.charlotteultraswim.com/results09/Psych.htm

Ryan has entered in 7 events:  200/400m IM, 100/200/400m Free and 100/200m Back.  I'm looking forward to the Phelps/Lochte/Peirsol races the most.  Also, Tyler Clary has entered in most if not all of the same events as Ryan.  

I want to write more about each these events and the other swimmers entered in them but don't have time now (stupid work).  Much more later.  

Here is a video of Ryan's workout routine.  Part of it is in Swedish.  Thanks to Jess at the Daily Reezy for finding this.  I don't really know what to say about it except he works very hard and he's very athletic.

Rome 2009 Preview - Lots of fast times in 100/200m back, 100/200m free and 200/400m IM

(thanks so much to somexseptember at Daily Reezy for the photo of Ryan, which was captured from the Speedo behind the scenes video found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PsfypVO7GY)

http://www.swimnews.com/rank
A review of the swimnews.com 2009 rankings for the 100/200m back, 100/200m free and 200/400m IM reveals some very fast times in March and April. Many of the performances I've already noted here, but others warrant attention as well.

100m Back
Junya Koga swam a 52.87 at the Japanese nationals last week, only .33 off of Aaron Peirsol's world record and the 3rd best time ever in this event. (Only Peirsol and Randall Bal have had faster times.) Ryosuke Irie came in second with a 53.19, the 3rd best time in the world in 2009. By comparison, Ryan's 53.92 is now the 10th fastest time in the world in 2009.

200m Back
I've already written about Irie's 1:54.02 last weekend at the Japanese nationals and his 1:54.74 in January 2009. I haven't mentioned that Takashi Nakano swam a 1:56.77 in the Japanese nationals and Damiano Lestingi swam a 1:56.91 in the Italian nationals in March. By comparison, Ryan's 1:57.73 is the 8th fastest time in the world in 2009.

Notably in the 100m/200m back, there haven't been any times put up by Aaron Peirsol or Michael Phelps in 2009. Peirsol swam only the prelims at the Austin Grand Prix in March and the prelims were in yards.

100m Free
It would be great for Ryan do well in this event in order to qualify for the 4 x 100m free relay in Rome. He's not really a sprinter (especially if he continues to swim the 400m IM) so I don't think he would qualify in the 100m free as an individual event. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that the best time in the world thus far in 2009 was a 48.11 at the Spain nationals by Filippo Magnini. Magnini also swam a 48.28 at the Italian nationals in March. The other two best times this year came from Eamon Sullivan in the Australian nationals - 48.24 and 48.34. There are no U.S. swimmers in the top 23 times this year. Ryan's best time in this event was 48.65 at the 2008 Olympic trials; his best time in 2009 was 50.58 at the Missouri GP.

200m Free
I've already written about Lin Zhang's 1:45.83 at the Chinese nationals and Marco Belotti's 1:46.33 at the Italian nationals. The best time this year by a U.S. swimmer was 1:46.57 by Peter Vanderkaay at the Austin GP. Ryan's best time this year was 1:48.17 at the Speedo South Sectionals in March.

200m IM
Five Japanese swimmers had times in the top 11 for 2009 at the Japanese nationals last week. Ken Takakuwa swam the best time in the world in 2009 with a time of 1:57.24. Takuro Fujii swam a 1:59.09, the 5th best time in the world this year. Yuma Kosaka had the 7th best time with a 1:59.59 and Hidemasa Sano had the 8th best time with a 1:59.62. Takayuki Ono had the 11th best time with a 1:59.86. That's unbelievable. Also last week, Duarian Townsend swam a 1:58.33 twice at the African nationals for the 3rd best time in the world this year. The fastest time by an American this year was Eric Shanteau's time of 1:59.31 at the Austin GP. Ryan's best time in 2009 was a 1:59.96 at the Speedo South Sectionals.

400m IM
The Japanese swimmers performed extremely well in this event as well last week. Ken Takakuwa had the 2nd and 3rd fastest times in the world in 2009 with a 4:12.41 and 4:12.56 at the Japanese nationals. Yuka Horihata swam a 4:13.69 and a 4:14.79 which were 5th and 8th in the world respectively this year. Hidemasa Sano and Yosuke Mori had the 11th and 12th best times with a 4:15.89 and 4:16.04 respectively.

I've already written about the best time in the world this year, a 4:12.39 by Thomas Haffield at the British nationals. I've also written about Luca Marin's 4:13.10 at the Italian nationals, the 4:14.06 by Lewis Smith at the British nationalss and the 4:14.16 by Hungary's David Verraszto at the Spanish Nationals. Ryan's best time in this event in 2009 was 4:19.49 at the Missouri GP.

2009 Spanish Open results + miscellaneous babbling

I can't find any news on Ryan's training and he has not entered in any meets lately so there's not much to write about. I have started forming opinions on a number of swimming topics, but am not ready to write about them without doing some more thinking. For instance, I believe Nick D'Arcy was screwed and I'm starting to think USA Swimming has squandered the opportunity to grow the sport after the Olympics. I could be really off base on these topics, though, and need to think about them some more and accumulate some evidence before articulating the basis for these opinions.

I did not write about the 2009 Spanish Open, which took place earlier this month. This was a mistake because there were some good results at that meet in events Ryan typically swims (100 & 200 back, 100 & 200 free, 200 & 400 IM).

Doug Van Wie, an American training in Europe, had some very impressive times: 1:47.88 in the 200m free and 54.94 in the 100m back. How exciting to be a young professional swimmer training in Europe. That is so cool. Smart move Doug Van Wie, I hope you are having the time of your life.

Aschwin Wildeboer of Spain swam the fastest time in the world in 2009 in the 100m back - 52.93. That is huge. Another 100m back swim under 53 seconds. Ryan has his work cut out for him in this event.

In the 400m IM a Hungarian named David Verraszto swam a 4:14.16, the 4th best time in the world this year. In the 200m IM a Portugese swimmer named Diogo Carvalho swam a 1:59.96, which is tied with Ryan for the 5th best time in the world this year.

In addition, Luca Marin, who came in 4th in the 400IM at the Olympics, swam a 4:13.10 at the Italian championships in March. He is deceptively fast in this event because fly is his weakest stroke so he always starts out behind but then catches up in the end.

The next meet that Ryan is expected to enter is the Charlotte Ultraswim on May 14-17. Tickets are super expensive, most likely because it will be Michael Phelps' first meet since the Olympics. The prices are $100 for all events for festival seating and $450 for assigned seating. That's very expensive for a swim meet and the ladies at Daily Reezy were saying it is almost twice as much as an all event ticket for the U.S. nationals.

It's been so long since Michael Phelps has competed, that I almost forgot how hugely famous he is compared to all of the other swimmers. It's amazing that his presence alone would drive prices that high, but it makes sense given that he's the only swimmer who is a household name. All eyes will be on him and I personally cannot wait to see what events he swims. An MP expert at Daily Reezy said MP is retooling his strokes. Nobody knows exactly what that means, but one theory is that he's changing to a straight-arm freestyle like Eamon Sullivan. If true, could this mean that Michael Phelps is going to be a pure sprinter from now on?

Video of Ryan in finals for 200m Back at Speedo South Sectionals (3/22)

Lisa (lenaorgana), the very nice person who runs the Daily Reezy, posted this video of Ryan swimming in the finals of the 200m back yesterday at the Speedo South Sectionals. Thanks to Lisa for bringing it to our attention and thanks also to the person who recorded the video and posted it on youtube.

Ryan's swim begins at about 3:28:



(I finally learned how to embed a video on blogger.)

The best part about the video? Ryan can go faster. He was swimming hard, and his underwaters were great, but he seemed to slow down before the turns and take them easy.

This video shows how much Ryan won by (almost 12 seconds), which is not to take away from the other swimmers. He is the world record holder in this event after all.

Ryan to race in 2009 Florida Spring Senior Championships this weekend?

I just read on Daily Reezy, the best source of all information on Ryan Lochte, that Ryan may be competing in a meet in Orlando this coming weekend. The 2009 Florida Spring Senior Championships will take place from Feb. 27-Mar. 1 in Orlando, and I'm wondering if that is the meet in question.

As soon as more information is available, I will post it. Here's the meet web address:

http://www.floridaswimming.org/FLSR.htm

Missouri Grand Prix Results

Ryan performed extremely well at the Missouri Grand Prix this past weekend. I was out of town and could not follow the results closely, not that I would have been able to given swimnetwork.com's big time fail on providing updates. Thanks to the Daily Reezy for providing some real time info about the races.

Ryan won 4 golds and 1 silver, and finished 1st in both "B" finals he swam. Not bad for someone who was in the middle of hard training and wearing an old fashioned Speedo.

Here's how Ryan did in his 8 events:

200m Free: 1:51.22 (1st in "B" final - 5th best time overall)
No video yet

100m Fly: 53.84 (2nd in "A" final)
http://www.swimnetwork.com/videos/v/20090217/2009_missouri_grand_prix_of_swimming___men_s_100_meter_butterfly___a_final-16209.html

400m IM: 4:19.49 (1st in "A" final)
http://www.swimnetwork.com/videos/v/20090217/2009_missouri_grand_prix_of_swimming___mens_400_im___a_final-16208.html

200m IM: 2:00.59 (1st in "A" final)
http://www.swimnetwork.com/videos/v/20090217/2009_missouri_grand_prix_of_swimming___mens_200_im___a_final-16207.html

100m Back: 55.16 (1st in "A" final)
no video yet

400m Free: 4:11.34 (24th place - Prelims only)
no video

200m Back: 1:57.73 (1st in "A" final)
http://www.swimnetwork.com/videos/v/20090217/2009_missouri_grand_prix___men_s_200_meter_backstroke__a_final-16217.html

100m Free - 50.58 (1st in "B" final - 7th best time overall)
http://www.swimnetwork.com/videos/v/20090217/2009_missouri_grand_prix_of_swimming___men_s_100_meter_freestyle___b_final-16223.html

Missouri Grand Prix - Feb. 13-16 - Long Course Meters

**thanks Daily Reezy for the photo

Here are the 8 events Ryan has entered at the Missouri Grand Prix:

Friday, Feb. 13
Event 2 - 200m Free - Ryan is seeded 1st with a qualifying time of 1:45.61

Event 6 - 100m Fly - Ryan is seeded 4th with a qualifying time of 52.86 (Fred Bosquet is seeded 1st at 51.50, Masayuki Kishida is 2nd at 51.86, Matt Grevers is third at 52.10)

Event 8 - 400m IM - Ryan is seeded 1st with a qualifying time of 4:06.08

Saturday, Feb. 14
Event 12 - 200m IM - Ryan is seeded 1st with a qualifying time of 1:55.22

Event 18 - 100m Back - Ryan is seeded 3rd with a qualifying time of 53.37 (Nick Thoman is seeded 1st at 52.91 and Matt Grevers is seeded 2nd at 52.99)

Event 20 - 400m Free - Ryan is seeded 2nd with a qualifying time of 3:49.25 (Sebastien Roualt is seeded 1st at 3:48.70)

Sunday, Feb. 15
Event 26 - 200m Back - Ryan is seeded 1st with a qualifying time of 1:53.94

Event 28 - 100 Free - Ryan is seeded 7th with a qualifying time of 48.65. (Brent Hayden is seeded 1st at 47.56, GWG is 2nd at 47.78, Fred Bosquet is 3rd at 48.52, Matt Grevers is 4th at 48.53, Dominik Meichtry is 5th at 48.55 and Simon Burnett is 6th at 48.57)


http://www.csctigersharks.org/MOGrandPrix2009/MOGPpsychsheet_001.pdf

Swimming News!

It's been a while since there's been anything new to report swimming-wise for Ryan, but finally there's something small but signficant to write about.

Someone on Daily Reezy referenced a recent interview with Mark Schubert, director of the U.S. National Team, that contained the following quote:

Ryan Lochte is the best swimmer in the world except for Phelps, Schubert said. Lochte told Schubert, "I'm going to keep swimming until I beat Michael Phelps. A lot."

http://www.indystar.com/article/20090204/SPORTS/902040358/1004/SPORTS

The article also quoted Schubert as saying Michael Phelps resumed training in November and not January as has been widely reported.

I can't wait for Ryan and Michael to race again. It's great to hear that Ryan still has such a strong desire to compete and win. Michael is supposed to return to competition at the Grand Prix event in Austin, TX in March. Hopefully they will both be there.

More on the So Cal Grand Prix - 100y free and 200y back results

Great news, lenaorgana (Lisa) from The Daily Reezy met Ryan and Gold Medal Mel at the meet yesterday and she posted a detailed account of her experience at The Daily Reezy website. In addition to speaking with Ryan, she took some photos and videos and also appeared in a video with Ryan that was shot by GMM. I can't wait to see that.

Also, Lisa Dillman of the L.A. Times interviewed Ryan about his future swimming plans and wrote an article about it. The article is very informative and will be covered in a separate post. http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-swim18-2009jan18,0,6794892.story

Given the overall Grand Prix results yesterday and Ryan's times specifically, it appears that Ryan and most of the swimmers are tired. I've read that swimmers do some of their toughest training over the holidays, and this is probably why the times are generally higher than usual.

A notable exception was Mary Descenza breaking the American record in the 200y fly and nearly breaking it in the 200y back. That is quite an amazing accomplishment, not only given the time of the year, but also because swimming those two extremely difficult events back to back and doing so well is unbelievable. Mary is an amazing swimmer and her accomplishments deserve attention. Hopefully she will continue to do well and qualify for the world championships in Rome. It's a shame that she never made the Olympic team.

Ryan's time in the 100y free was 43.18, which placed him first in the "B" final by nearly 1.5 seconds and would have placed him third in the "A" final had he done better in the prelims. Lisa Dillman wrote the following about Ryan's 100y free performance:

That led to a particularly painful opening race Saturday, the "A" consolation final of the 100 freestyle. His time was 43.18 seconds."Let's just leave that out," he said, smiling. "The 100 free, let's just say I was in so much pain. I've never felt that bad before."

The official results for the 200y back were not available at http://www.socalswim.org/, but swimnetwork.com had the following information:

Olympic gold medalist Ryan Lochte (Daytona Beach, Fla.) also had a strong night Saturday, setting a meet record in the 200y back in 1:39.01. Olympic silver medalist Matt Grevers (Lake Forest, Ill.) was second in 1:40.42 and Adam Ritter (Reynoldsburg, Ohio) was third in 1:44.41.

Ryan broke the meet record in the 200 back. It's a nice accomplishment, although I'm sure he does not care about this one bit because his time was 3 seconds off his American record.

Swimnetwork.com also has videos of the individual races, which can be seen here:

100y free (B final)

http://www.swimnetwork.com/videos/v/20090118/2009_southern_california_grand_prix_of_swimming___men_s_100yd_freestyle___b_final-16073.html

200y back (A final)
http://www.swimnetwork.com/videos/v/20090118/2009_southern_california_grand_prix_of_swimming___men_s_200yd_backstroke___a_final-16087.html

As for the type of suit Ryan was wearing, Lisa at Daily Reezy told me he was wearing a regular speedo in the prelims and had some type of long legs-only suit on during the finals. In the videos, it doesn't look like a Speedo LZR. Ryan may be trying out a different brand of fast suit or it could be a different type of Speedo that I don't know anything about.

FINALS - 100 free and 200 back - So Cal Grand Prix

Ryan finished first in the consolation final of the 100 free with a time that would have placed him 3rd overall had he made the championship final.

Ryan placed first in the 200 back. :))

I'll add more information tomorrow, including Ryan's times and the kind of suit he was wearing. Hopefully swimnetwork.com will have videos of the races. I heard GMM was at the meet, which should mean more videos and insider information! A couple of people from Daily Reezy went too so that should mean photos.

Ryan to Compete at Grand Prix in Long Beach, CA - January 16-19, 2009

I just read on Daily Reezy that Ryan is going to compete in the next Grand Prix event, which is a short course meet in Long Beach, California from January 16-19, 2009. No information yet on what events Ryan will swim.

It's really exciting to hear that Ryan will be competing again so soon. I guess this means his training with Leith Brodie in Australia will not start until some time after this meet.

The source cited by Daily Reezy did not indicate if the meet will be SC yards or meters, but I'm guessing it's yards given that $1,000 will be awarded for each American record broken at the meet and nothing was said about world records.

The source also stated that a $20,000 prize will be awarded to the swimmer with the highest point score at the last Grand Prix event in 2009. Ryan is currently tied for 3rd place with 13 points, having won two golds and a silver at the Minnesota Grand Prix event in November. Mary Descenza is in first place with 30 points (wow!) http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/ViewMiscArticle.aspx?TabId=162&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en&mid=564&ItemId=2991

Swimnetwork.com is going to have race footage and interviews, which is really great. They did a fantastic job at the SC Nationals and hopefully it will be the same type of coverage.

Source: http://swimming.about.com/od/swimminggrandprixmeets/qt/socalgp_109meet.htm

Video of Ryan's Swimming Accomplishments

An amazing video tribute to Ryan was posted on Reezy Daily today as part of Lochtepalooza. It's very cool and entertaining, and well worth watching. In terms of Ryan's swimming accomplishments, the best part is near the end, starting at 4:20, where all of Ryan's medals in international meets are listed. Wow. This doesn't even include his NCAA accomplishments and it is an amazing list.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfwnNaf5T6M All credit for creating this fierce video goes to Heather (somexseptember) at Reezy Daily and of course to Ryan for providing the inspiration.