NCAA Men's Division 1 Swimming Championships - Tyler Clary

The official list of swimmers invited to participate in the NCAA Men's Division 1 Swimming Championships was released today and can be found at: http://www.ncaaswim.com/pdf/m09_off_ps.pdf . The meet will take place on March 26-28, 2009.

Tyler Clary will be swimming in the 200y IM (in which he is ranked 2nd after Bradley Ally of Florida), 400y IM (in which he is ranked 1st), 200y Back (in which he is ranked 1st) and probably a relay or two. (Sorry, I just can't get excited about college relays.)

Tyler's best events are the same as Ryan's. This summer's national championships will be very interesting. I hope Tyler does well at the NCAAs and that he really pushes Ryan this summer.

Nevertheless, in my admittedly highly uneducated opinion, Tyler needs to improve his walls and underwater kicking if he's going to compete with Ryan. I haven't had many opportunities to watch Tyler swim, but I recently saw a video of his 400y IM performance at U.S. SC Nationals in December 2008 thanks to swimnetwork.com.

Tyler came in 2nd in that race and could have won except he popped up too quickly after his turns. The guy who ultimately won, Hidemasa Sano, had fantastic underwater kicks. Both had great times but Tyler could have been much faster had he stayed underwater longer. I mean it was obvious even to me and I'm certainly no expert. Tyler's time at SC Nationals was 3:40.96. He swam a 3:38.03 when he broke the NCAA record, which was nearly a 3 second improvement. Maybe Tyler has already improved his walls/underwater kicking and I just have had the opportunity to see it.

This brings up a question I've had for a while about underwater kicking. It looks really hard and like it would take a ton of strength training and practice to perfect. Is this why not everyone does it? It works so well for Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, that it would seem obvious for every swimmer to do it....push hard off the walls on turns, stay under water as long as possible, and dophin kick like crazy. Yet most swimmers don't really do it. Is it something that requires a level of athleticism that only a few swimmers have? I certainly don't know the answer.

Laci Cseh training in South Africa for 3 weeks??

http://www.blikk.hu/sport/cseh-elutazott-del-afrikaba-136257.html

According to a very poor translation of this article, it appears that Laci Cseh (I love calling him that) has been training in Durban, South Africa for 3 weeks starting at the end of February.

I have no doubt that Laci will be ready to go next summer in Rome, despite (and possibly because of) his long break after the Olympics.

I could not find results from any races that Laci has entered recently, or any evidence that he has competed since Beijing. It's difficult to figure out what is going on when most articles are written in Hungarian and I cannot read them!

In any event, Laci is looking happy and fit in the photo to the left and he appears to be back in the water training hard.

Laszlo "Laci" Cseh

I was searching for updated information on Laszlo Cseh, wondering if he is training again and if he has entered into any competitions. Given that I cannot understand Hungarian, it was difficult to find out where Cseh is in his training. However, I did learn that his nickname is Laci, which is awesome. Also, I found some interesting videos on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO5-jb4su0k



Here is a video of the 200 IM race at the Beijing Olympics where Michael Phelps won gold, Laci won silver and Ryan won bronze. Laci beat Ryan by only .01. The video is from Hungarian television. What really struck me watching this was how tired Michael looked after the race. The announcers talked about Ryan a lot....wonder what they said.

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



Here's a video from Hungarian television of the 400IM race in Beijing. I forgot how great Ryan looked for the first 300 meters. He really went for it in the back and breast and then died at the end. Swimming as fast as possible in the middle 200 was the only chance Ryan had to beat Michael Phelps and win gold. Ryan could have swam a safer race and won silver. Although his race strategy ultimately did not work, it was a super gutsy move by Ryan, who was really sick at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0qWQgH4eQ4



Here's a video of the medal ceremony for the 200 IM at the Olympics. It starts with Laci receiving his silver medal and continues with Michael receiving his gold. I've always wanted to see this medal ceremony because photos show Michael and Ryan had such a great time. This doesn't show much, but it shows a little bit of the fun.

As soon as I find out when Laci will compete again, I will write about it. He must have some kind of qualifying meet coming up for worlds but I haven't yet figured out how it works, i.e. if Hungary has a separate national meet or if there is a combined European meet that serves as trials for all participating countries.

Upcoming World Championships Qualifying Trials

The U.S. National Championships (and World Championship trials) take place on July 7-11 in Indianapolis. Other countries have their national championships and world trials much sooner, with two taking place in March 2009.

British Championships - March 16-20, 2009 in Sheffield, England. The start list (psych sheet) has not yet been released; however, some information can be found here: http://www.britishswimming.org/

Australian Championships - March 17-22, 2009 in Sydney, Australia. The start list has been released. The start list and additional information can be found at http://www.swimming.org.au/

I will report on the results at these championships along with the NCAA championships that take place at the end of March.

Austin Grand Prix Results - Comparison to Ryan's Times

The Austin Grand Prix event took place this weekend, and although Ryan did not participate, here are the best times by Americans in the events I believe Ryan will swim at the 2009 National Championships (and hopefully the 2009 World Champs).

For purposes of comparison, also listed are Ryan's best times in these events in 2009 and his all-time personal bests.

100m Back

54.84 – Ben Hesen - Austin GP
54.92 – Nick Thoman - Austin GP
55.16 - Ryan's best time 2009 - Missouri GP
53.37 - Ryan's all-time best - 2008 Olympic trials

200m Back

1:59.65 - Ian Clark - Austin GP

2:01.47 - Nick Thoman - Austin GP

1:57.73 - Ryan's best time 2009 - Missouri GP

1:53.94 - Ryan's all-time best - 2008 Olympics (World Record)

100m Free

48.88 - Garrett Weber-Gale - Austin GP

49.43 - Dale Rogers - Austin GP

49.80 - Peter Vanderkaay - Austin GP

49.86 - William Copeland - Austin GP

50.58 - Ryan's best time 2009 - Missouri GP

48.65 - Ryan's all-time best - 2008 Olympic trials

200m Free

1:46.87 – Peter Vanderkaay - Austin GP

1:49.63 – Garrett Weber-Gale - Austin GP

1:51.22 - Ryan's best time 2009 - Missouri GP
1:45.61 - Ryan's all-time best - 2008 Olympic trials

200m IM

1:59.31 – Eric Shanteau - Austin GP

2:00.59 - Ryan's best time 2009 - Missouri GP
1:55.22 - Ryan's all-time best - 2008 Olympic trials

400m IM

4:17.97 – Andrew Gemmell - Austin GP

4:19.49 - Ryan's best time 2009 - Missouri GP
4:06.08 - Ryan's all-time best - 2008 Olympic trials

It appears the most difficult individual events for Ryan to qualify in for the World Championships will be the 100m Back, 100m Free and 200m Free. This has nothing new, and has not changed from the 2008 Olympic trials. Ryan is super fast, but is technically not a sprinter, particularly since he continues to train for the 400m IM. Thus, it is probably not realistic for Ryan to qualify in the 100m Free as an individual event. Nevertheless, I believe he will swim it in an attempt to qualify for the 400m Free Relay.

The times at the Austin GP, particularly for the professional swimmers, have been impressive. Ryan will do fine, but he has his work cut out for him in the 100m Back, 100m Free and 200m Free.

Florida Spring Championships - 3/1 Finals; Austin Grand Prix

In Sunday's finals, Ryan came in first in both of his events:

100y Free - 43.73 (splits 20.63, 23.10)
200y Back - 1:41.02 (splits 23.80, 25.43, 25.58, 26.21)

It seems as though Ryan took it kind of easy today, but still won his races, which is always a good thing.

The swimmers participating in the Austin Grand Prix from March 5-7, 2009 have been announced, and Ryan is not one of them. I don't know when Ryan will be swimming next, but the Grand Prix does not have another event until the Charlotte Ultra Swim on May 14-17. It has already been announced that Michael Phelps will return to competition in Charlotte, so I hope Ryan will be there as well.

From what I've heard, this is the time of year when swimmers train the hardest, including high altitude training. It may be a while before Ryan races again.

Here's a link to a video someone put on youtube of Ryan's 100y Back race yesterday at the Florida Senior Spring Championships. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vmi_Ev6Hp8

Florida Spring Championships - 2/28 Finals; Tyler Clary wins 200y Back at Big 10 Champs

Ryan placed first in both his events Saturday at the Florida Spring Championships.

In the 50y Free, his time was 19.89 and in the 100y Back, his time was 46.20. He's gone faster this year in both events, but if he is in the middle of hard training right now, neither time is bad.

Tyler Clary won his 3rd individual event at the Big 10 championships on Saturday, the 200y Back. His time was 1:39.59, which beat the pool record formerly held by.....Ryan Lochte of all people. He did not beat Ryan's NCAA record, which is nearly 2 seconds faster. Tyler has the fastest time in Div. 1 swimming this year, just ahead of Rex Tullius and Omar Pinzon of Florida. It will be so interesting to see how Tyler does at the NCAA championships in all 3 of his events.

As a graduate of a Big 10 school other than Michigan (and one of Michigan's biggest rivals in football), it pains me a little to cheer for a Michigan athlete. The first college football game I ever went to was against Michigan, and I still remember a bunch of guys singing the x-rated version of the Michigan fight song. In fact, I can't get that song out of my head now.

Nevertheless, Tyler is a very versitile swimmer and he's good at all of the same events as Ryan. I will enjoy watching them swim against each other this summer.