Happy because I found another photo of Ryan at Ultraswim. A total of 2!Ryan swam in the 100m back A final tonight and the 400m free B final. He placed 4th in the back and 3rd in the free. His 100 back time was 55.13 and his 400 free time was 4:01.53.
Neither time was near Ryan's best, but given the time of the season and the amount of training he is doing now, the times were good.
The 100 back race was really fun to watch. Aaron Peirsol finished first followed by Michael Phelps and Nick Thoman. These guys were all wearing "fast" suits whereas Ryan wore the old fashioned speedo. I don't think a fast suit would have helped Ryan win, but he may have gone sub-55.
I watched an interesting video on flowswimming.org of Patrick Murphy, age 17, who tied Ryan in the 100 back prelims. Patrick Murphy swam 10,000 meters in practice between prelims and finals! That's how hard these guys are training right now, Ryan included.
The video of Patrick Murphy, who ultimately finished 6th in the finals of the 100 back, can be watched here:
Tyler Clary had a great night. He came in 2nd in the A final of the 400m free with a time of 3:55.06, which qualified him for the world championship trials. Tyler also finished 5th in the A final of the 200 fly with a time of 2:01.74. He also qualified for the world championship trials in this event.
The announcers said tonight that the Club Wolverine team just finished altitude training. Tyler is having a great meet.
Finally, it was fun to watch Marco Loughran of University of Florida/UK win the 100 back B final by .02. Marco has his world championship trials coming up in Scotland in a few weeks and hopefully he will win the 100 back there.
3 comments:
Have you checked out Floswimming? Pictures are being posted there as well. Of course there are not a lot of Lochte (because this meet seems to be all about MP *whateva*) but there are a few of Lochte in there too.
With all the Universal Sports coverage (despite the "Subway" connection) this meet is turning out to be really informative concerning things like training and the different swimsuits… I really feel that if people better understand the process that these swimmers go through it would develop more of a following… I know it took me a while to figure out what was going on since it all moves so fast... And sure it's great to watch Ryan swim and of course we would all love to see him win everything but it's also interesting to hear about the level of training he is at right now and what his coach is having him do and not do… It almost seems like he didn't really go there to win but to see how well he did with certain handicaps (as in the suits he is wearing) so that when he does finally pull out all his tricks he will go even faster.
Also, I love watching the up and coming young swimmers… I picked up on Dagny Knutson when I first started following swimming last fall and am so glad to see how incredible she is doing and after watching the Patrick Murphy video it is really great to hear how the more experienced swimmers embrace the younger ones.
Caroline, thanks for the tip about pictures at Floswimming. There are some really good pictures there.
With all the press at this meet I was waiting for someone to ask Ryan to comment on Ryosuke Irie breaking his world record in the 200 back. It finally happened.
LzzyBee1 thanks so much for your comment. You're lucky to have Universal Sports coverage on tv...my web connection has been sporadic and it's been difficult to hear everything the commentators are saying. It's so helpful to hear their comments about suits and training because it puts everything into better perspective.
It sounds like Ryan knew he would not do well at this meet given where he's at in training. It must be difficult for him to motivate himself put his body through the pain of swimming the events, all the while knowing he will be criticized by some for not winning or doing better. No wonder he scratched the 400IM. I give him credit for swimming in as many events as he has.
Dagny Knutson is amazing! It will be fun to watch her at the U.S. Nationals.
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