Tyler Clary was so fast! He sliced 8 seconds from his personal best prior to this meet and 5 seconds from his prelim time. His breaststroke looked very good, so improved. His whole race was unbelievable. I was surprised to see Tyler pull away from Ryan in the backstroke. I know Tyler is a great backstroker, but Ryan is better.Nevertheless, I thought Ryan swam a perfect race. He kept close to Tyler the whole way and then killed it in a devastating last turn. It was so fun to watch.
Fastest time in the world this year by 4 seconds and he did it in LZR legs. (Tyler was wearing a Jaked). Not bad. I think Ryan has a chance of breaking the WR in Rome.
Here's a breakdown of their splits:
Ryan: 25.70/29.72 (fly) 31.42/30.86 (back) 35.00/35.62 (breast) 29.40/28.68 (free)
Tyler: 25.64/29.45 (fly) 31.03/30.02 (back) 35.06/36.29 (breast) 29.91/29.56 (free)
Ryan won the race in the last 50, but Tyler's breaststroke really held up. Such a fun race to watch.
Here is link to a video of the race from swimnetwork.com:
http://www.swimnetwork.com/videos/v/20090707/nationals_men_s_400_im_a_final-16794.html
Here is a link to Ryan's post-race interview with Summer Sanders:
http://www.swimnetwork.com/videos/v/20090707/ryan_lochte_interview-16795.html
Thanks to Yahoo Olympics for the photos.
Finally, here's a really nice article about tonight's race (and the 400IM in general) from the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/sports/08swim.html?ref=sports
3 comments:
Ryan seems to be really turning it on at the end of his events this season... I was wondering if this is some sort of strategy making the other swimmers aware of this so that they go out really fast in the beginning and don't have the steam left at the end... Just a thought, but whatever, "it's working" and we love watching it!
I was so nervous during the race, I coudn't believe that Clary was under Michael's record during a big part of the race.
Do you think Ryan could have broke the record if he were wearing the jaked suit?
It's so fun to watch a close 400IM and Ryan's strategy of staying close and then overpowering Clary in the end was really exciting. It has to be a strategy LzzyBee1. Ryan said his coach told him he never swam that event better.
I don't know about if Ryan could have broken the WR in a Jaked Emanuella. Those suits are very confusing. Some people were saying Tyler's body was positioned higher in the water b/c of the Jaked, but it didn't look like he was that much higher than Ryan, especially the last 50 meters.
Ryan probably won't ever wear a Jaked given his commitment to Speedo. Hopefully he will still break the WR or come close in Rome.
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