200 free prelims tonight and my thoughts on the Men's 400m free relay relay

Watch tonight at 8 pm CDT on Universal Sports, either online or on tv if you are lucky enough to have that station.

In my opinion, Ryan Lochte should not have been left out of the finals of the 400m free relay and he should not have had to swim prelims to prove his ability. Ryan was on the winning relay in 2009 and 2010 and he performed very well both times. At Pan Pacs his split was 47.98, faster than Lezak. He is the best or second best swimmer on the team. When the stakes are high, you put your best swimmer out there. It's like selecting the best athlete in the NFL draft.

The coaches decided to put him in the prelims and he had the 3rd best time behind GWG and Dave Walters. (2nd best actual time, 3rd best when you factor in the flat start for GWG, the first swimmer). In my view Ryan still should have been selected for the finals even under those circumstances.

The time differences were very small. GWG's prelim time was 48.49. Subtract .5 for the flat start and he's at 47.99. Lochte's time was 48.28, .29 slower. Walters' time was 48.11. GWG was selected for the finals and his time was 48.33 from a relay start, so effectively .34 slower than prelims.

Many people say that the decision about who to place in the finals should be based on time alone. If GWG beat Ryan by .29 then he should swim in the finals not Ryan. I think this kind of black and white rule is short sighted and doesn't consider all the factors at play.

Australia didn't follow that rule and they won gold. In the prelims, Eamon Sullivan's time was 48.71. James Roberts' time was 48.25. Under the black and white rule it's a no brainer. Roberts swims in the finals and Sullivan doesn't. But the Australians chose Sullivan because he has a lot more experience. He's a better swimmer overall. In the finals, Sullivan's time was 47.72, virtually a second faster.

Who is to say that Lochte wouldn't have gone a second faster in the finals? There's no reason to think he wouldn't improve as much as Sullivan. Lochte qualified for four individual events. He was the swimmer of the year in 2010. He killed everyone at SC Worlds in Dubai. He's the only swimmer to set an individual world record in a jammer since 2009. If you're going to bet on someone doing well, why not bet on him over two swimmers who made the team in relays only.

Let's look at the numbers if Lochte had swum in the finals and improved as much as Sullivan did. That would mean Lochte's time would be 47.29, more than a second faster than GWG. That would have been enough for the gold.

I don't know if Ryan could have swum that fast, but if you know the competition is tough don't you want your best swimmer in the race? Australia decided to do it that way by choosing Sullivan over Roberts and look where it got them.

Relay photos

Ryan swims prelims of 400m free relay

I was wrong about Ryan not swimming the prelims of the 400m free relay. He swam second in a time of 48.28. The good news is the US made the finals finishing 2nd overall after France.

I don't know if Ryan will be in the finals though, which is disappointing. The US splits were:

Garrett Weber-Gale: 48.49

Ryan Lochte: 48.28

Scot Robison: 48.62

David Walters: 48.11

Ryan had the second fastest time, which probably means he won't be in the finals with Michael Phelps, Jason Lezak and Nathan Adrian. It will probably be either David Walters, who had the fastest time, or Garrett Weber-Gale, who had the most impressive time given it wasn't a relay start.

More later

Men's 400m free relay

The prelims for the 400m free relay are tonight in the U.S. I can't wait to find out who will be swimming for the U.S. My predictions for the lineups are:

prelims

Garrett Weber Gale

David Walters

Scot Robison

Jason Lesak

finals

Michael Phelps

Ryan Lochte

Jason Lesak

Nathan Adrian

I think Lesak will swim the prelims because his only individual event is the 100 free and he has less swims overall than Lochte, Phelps and Adrian. Also he's obviously a great relay swimmer who will ensure a great finish for the U.S.

It is possible that Adrian may swim in the prelims, just to ensure a good time and a good lane, but all of the U.S. swimmers are so fast I don't think it will be necessary.

Phelps and Lochte have too many other swims throughout the meet for their 7 and 6 events respectfully. I do not believe they will be asked to swim the relay prelim.

If Weber Gale, Walters or Robison has a faster swim than Lesak in the prelims, it is possible he would be replaced in the finals.

Those are my guesses. We'll find out in a few hours.

USA has 3rd fastest time in 4 x 100m free relay prelims

In the 4 x 100m free relay prelims, the USA team of Garrett Weber Gale, Ricky Berens, David Walters and Nathan Adrian had a time of 3:08.06, which was third best. The teams qualifying for the finals are:

Russia - 3:07.78 (new CR)
Australia - 3:08.06
USA - 3:08.69
Brazil - 3:08.71
Italy - 3:09.85
France - 3:09.97
China - 3:12.63
Sweden - 3:12.77

Ryan will swim in the finals, possibly in place of Dave Walters who had the slowest time on the U.S. team by .04.

Day 1 Prelims - FINA Short Course World Championships

If you are able to stay up late tonight, you can obtain live results at http://www.omegatiming.com/livetiming/index.htm. I do not know of a live stream video available in the United States.

The Day 1 prelims start at Midnight CST.

The 200m free is the first event and Ryan is in Heat 10/10, Lane 5.

Here are the swimmers in Heat 10 with lane assignments to the left:

1 CASTRO Rodrigo BRA 1979 1:46.20
2 KVALE Gard NOR 1984 1:45.10
3 AGNEL Yannick FRA 1992 1:43.18
4 MAGNINI Filippo ITA 1982 1:41.65
5 LOCHTE Ryan USA 1984 1:42.88
6 VANDERKAAY Peter USA 1984 1:44.20
7 MATHLOUTHI Ahmed TUN 1989 1:45.70
8 LE CLOS Chad Guy Bertrand RSA 1992 1:47.89

The 4 x 100m free relay is event 9. The U.S. is in Heat 3/3, Lane 4. I do not know if Ryan will swim prelims for this event. He will certainly swim the finals.

Here are the teams and lane assignments in Heat 3:

2 CHN China
3 VEN Venezuela
4 USA United States
5 SWE Sweden
6 KEN Kenya
7 ITA Italy

The finals start at 19:30 (7:30 pm) in Dubai. Because Dubai is GMT+4, the finals will be start tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. CST.

I'm ready for this meet to start.

Short Course World Championships in Dubai - Relays

There are three relays at the Short Course World Championships - the same 3 relays swum at long course meets:

4 x 100 free relay
4 x 200 free relay
4 x 100 medley relay

Ryan will likely swim in both free relays. He may have an opportunity to swim the backstroke in the medley relay, but I doubt he'll do it. It's the last event of the meet and would be his 8th! Nick Thoman and David Plummer (if he can make it to Dubai after the blizzard in Minneapolis) will likely swim in the relay.

The 4 x 100 free relay takes place on Wednesday, December 15, the first day of the meet. I predict Ryan will swim the first leg and the U.S. will win although the French and Russian teams will be a strong challenge. Nathan Adrian will be the anchor. I believe the other swimmers will be Garrett Weber-Gale and either David Walters or Josh Schneider.

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

Prelims of 100 free & 200 IM - US nationals

Ryan swam in the prelims of the 100 free and the 200 IM at US nationals this morning. Here are the results:

100m free:

Ryan had the 2nd fastest time in the morning prelims, a personal best of 48.16. I wanted so badly for him to go 47 something, but 48.16 is really fast. Only Nathan Adrian went faster with a time of 48.10. I don't think Ryan will swim the finals of this event, so hopefully 48.16 is fast enough to secure a spot on the 4 x 100 free relay in Rome.

The big news is Michael Phelps dropped out of the 100 free with a stiff neck. Apparently he wanted to race but his doctor & coach told him no. He will no doubt still be on the 4 x 100 free relay at the US national team coach's option. It would be crazy to leave him off the relay given he is one of the fastest if not the fastest American in this event when healthy and he has tons of experience on the relay.

The top prelim times in the 100 free were:

1 ADRIAN Nathan - 48.10
2 LOCHTE Ryan - 48.16
3 TARGETT Matthew - 48.17* (Australian - will swim in B final)
4 WALTERS David - 48.46
5 WEBERGALE Garrett - 48.52
6 BRUNELLI Nicholas - 48.73
7 JONES Cullen - 48.74
8 BERENS Ricky - 48.83
9 FEIGEN Jimmy - 48.84
10 BROWN Adam - 48.97

Given that Matt Target is Australian and cannot swim in the A final, Jimmy Feigen will move up. I expect Adam Brown will also move up to the A final when Ryan drops out. It's hard to bet against Nathan Adrian and Dave Walters is having such a good meet, but I've got to go with Garrett Weber-Gale and Cullen Jones finishing 1-2 in the final tonight.

Notably, Cesar Cielo and Fred Bousquet did not finish in the top 8, swimming just fast enough to qualify for the B final. They both took it easy presumably because as foreign nationals the B final was the best they could do. Watch for them both to be very fast in tonight's finals.

200m IM

I did not get to see Ryan's race against Tyler Clary in this morning's 200 IM prelims due to work, but I heard it was a lot like the 400 IM. Tyler led through the fly, back & breast and Ryan put it into the next gear and cruised by him in the freestyle, winning by 1.56 seconds with a time of 1:57.05. Interestingly, Ryan's prelim time was the 2nd fastest time in 2009 by only .02!

The top 8 finishers were:

1 LOCHTE Ryan - 1:57.05
2 CLARY Tyler - 1:58.61
3 SHANTEAU Eric - 1:59.37
4 BROWN Jack - 1:59.94
5 D'INNOCENZO Nicholas - 2:01.43
6 COLLINS Bryan - 2:01.76
7 THOMPSON Matthew - 2:01.82
8 MARGALIS Robert - 2:02.19

Here's my bold prediction for tonight. I think Ryan is going to break the world record in this event, or at least come very close. After reviewing the schedule for world championships, I am changing my prediction from yesterday. The 200 IM is on the same day as the 200 back in Rome and it will be swum second, just like at the Olympics. I don't think Ryan will be able to break the WR in Rome when the race will be the 2nd swim in an extremely tough double. Thus, this is his big chance to do it. He needs a 1:54.23, which is nearly a second faster than his personal best of 1:55.22. I think he can do it. I think Tyler Clary pushes him and finishes 2nd.