The events are:
200m free (first)
100m back (third)
200m back (first)
200m IM (first)
400m IM (first)
The entire roster can be found here:
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Ryan Qualifies for 2011-12 US National Team in 5 Events
USA Swimming announced the 2011-12 National Team today, and Ryan qualified in 5 events, the most of any swimmer male and femaile. He was the top qualifier in 4 of the events and the 3rd best qualifier in the 5th one.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Ryan Lochte - A look back 2005/06 (Part IV)
A while ago (May 2010) I wrote some blogs on Ryan's past swimming seasons, starting with his first year of college and leading up through the 2004 Olympics and 2005 World Championships. Here are links for the past installments:
A look back 2002/03 (Part I) - http://ryanlochteswimming.blogspot.com/2010/05/look-back-20022003.html
A look back 2003/04 (Part II) - http://ryanlochteswimming.blogspot.com/2010/05/look-back-part-ii.html
A look back 2004/05 (Part III) http://ryanlochteswimming.blogspot.com/2010/05/look-back-part-iii-200405.html
Here's 2006/06 (Part IV):
This season was Ryan's senior year of college and his final appearance at the NCAA Championships. It also represented his transition to professional swimming and an appearance at the 2006 Short Course World Championships in Shanghai and the 2006 Pan Pacs in Canada. This is also the season where Ryan set his first World Records in individual events: three of them in Shanghai.
It's interesting to look back because it shows that Ryan has been swimming very successfully for a long time, but he has also improved tremendously each year.
The season started with the 2005 U.S. Open Championships in Auburn, Alabama, Dec 3-5, 2005. Ryan showed his versatility by winning 4 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze (plus swimming in two additional "A" finals) - a total of 8 events over 3 days!
100m free - 8th
100m back - 1st
100m fly - 5th
200m back - 1st
200m IM - 1st
4 x 100m medley relay - 3rd (back)
4 x 200m free relay - 1st
4 x 100n free relay - 2nd
Interesting note: Pieter Van Den Hoogenbrand of Holland swam in this meet.
The only video I could find was the 100m free, which was won by Nick Brunelli who beat Van Den Hoogenbrand, the WR holder at the time. Ryan placed 8th.
2006 NCAA Championships - Atlanta, GA
200y back - 1st (won by 2.57 seconds) - NCAA record
200y IM - 1st (won by 3.65 seconds) - NCAA record
400y IM - 1st (won by 1.32 seconds over Ous Mellouli) - NCAA record
4 x 100y free relay - 5th
4 x 200y free relay - 4th
4 x 50y medley relay - 7th (back)
4 x 100y medley relay - 7th (Ryan's 100y back split was 44.60 - NCAA record)
Won high point score (Peter Vanderkaay was 2nd)
2006 Short Course World Championships - Shanghai, China
This meet took place only 2 weeks after the NCAA championships.
200m free - 5th
200m back - 1st - World Record
200m IM - 1st - World Record
400m IM - 1st
4 x 100m free relay - 3rd
4 x 200m free relay 3rd
4 x 100m medley relay - 2nd (Ryan set World Record on backstroke leg)
Ryan set 3 individual World Records, the only individual WRs set at this meet.
Won high point award.
Here is the video of his WR swim in the 100 back
2006 U.S. Nationals - August 1-5, 2006
200m free - 4th
200m back - 3rd
100m fly - 3rd
200m IM - 2nd
400m IM - 2nd
2006 Pan Pacs - Victoria, BC - August 17-20, 2006
100m free - 18th (prelims)
400m free - 7th (prelims)
100m back - 2nd
200m IM - 2nd
4 x 200m free relay - 1st
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Chat with Ryan Lochte tomorrow (August 16) on espn.com
http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/39787/olympian-ryan-lochte
The chat will take place on August 16 at 2:30 pm ET (which is GMT -5). You can submit questions in advance. Click on the link above.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Very interesting analysis by swimmingscience.net of the 200 IM at Worlds:
http://www.swimmingscience.net/2011/07/stat-sunday-200-im-comparison.html
Stat Sunday: 200 IM Comparison
First off, it was great to see some WR's go down without the high-tech suits! Hopefully this will remove the mental block, allowing athlete's to realize they can go faster than they went with the high-tech suits. I've done a WR analysis: Men's 200 IM and I still feel the 200 IM LCM WR is the most impressive. This analysis will take a short look between Phelps and Lochte.
Lochte: 24.89 53.48 1:26.51 1:54.00
28.59 33.03 27.49
Phelps: 24.83 53.67 1:26.80 1:54.16
28.84 33.13 27.36
It is easy to look at the race and say Lochte had a better butterfly and breast leg, leading him to victory. However, what was better and faster? My analysis showed a nearly identical race, with Lochte having a slightly better start and first 25, but Phelps building better into the finish. Lochte and Phelps taking the same number of strokes in the butterfly. Off the first wall was Lochte's largest advantage, spending 1.5 seconds longer underwater which allowed him to keep his stroke number equal to Phelps, but use a faster stroke rate. The breast was quite similar, but once again Lochte had a slightly higher stroke rate, helping him slightly extend his lead. On the last 50, Lochte once again gained room off the wall and was out splitting Phelps at the 25, but Lochte's higher stroke rate or longer duration under water potentially lead to him velocity to slow and finish with a long extension.
This is nitpicking differneces, but the Lochte's superior walls and stroke rate allowed him to hold off Phelps', but if Lochte can't rest on this win, Phelps' and Bowman and great strategist who will be ready to duel again next year, luckily Lochte is oblivious to most of society and will be able to stick to his strategy. Can't wait for the next race.
GJohn
28.59 33.03 27.49
Phelps: 24.83 53.67 1:26.80 1:54.16
28.84 33.13 27.36
It is easy to look at the race and say Lochte had a better butterfly and breast leg, leading him to victory. However, what was better and faster? My analysis showed a nearly identical race, with Lochte having a slightly better start and first 25, but Phelps building better into the finish. Lochte and Phelps taking the same number of strokes in the butterfly. Off the first wall was Lochte's largest advantage, spending 1.5 seconds longer underwater which allowed him to keep his stroke number equal to Phelps, but use a faster stroke rate. The breast was quite similar, but once again Lochte had a slightly higher stroke rate, helping him slightly extend his lead. On the last 50, Lochte once again gained room off the wall and was out splitting Phelps at the 25, but Lochte's higher stroke rate or longer duration under water potentially lead to him velocity to slow and finish with a long extension.
This is nitpicking differneces, but the Lochte's superior walls and stroke rate allowed him to hold off Phelps', but if Lochte can't rest on this win, Phelps' and Bowman and great strategist who will be ready to duel again next year, luckily Lochte is oblivious to most of society and will be able to stick to his strategy. Can't wait for the next race.
GJohn
Saturday, August 6, 2011
New York Times article about the marketing of Ryan Lochte
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/sports/as-lochte-raises-profile-image-makers-dive-in.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
As Lochte Raises His Profile, Image Makers Dive Right In
By KAREN CROUSE
Published: August 6, 2011
STANFORD, Calif. — Ryan Lochte was beat. After finally catchingMichael Phelps, whom he had spent nearly a decade chasing, Lochte traveled through several time zones to compete at the United States swimming championships at Stanford University.
Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press
Ryan Lochte pulled out of the national championships, citing fatigue.
Barbara Walton/European Pressphoto Agency
Ryan Lochte's name is on his shoes and it was all over the scoreboard at the world championships in Shanghai, where he won six medals.
A day after arriving from China, Lochte finished a disappointing third in the 100-meter backstroke, one of seven or eight events he could swim at next year’s London Olympics.
Lochte’s natural drawl was pronounced, as if he were resting on the vowels, when he announced afterward that he was too tired to compete in the final three days of the meet. His decision to even participate in the national championships on the heels of his six-medal star turn at the world championships in Shanghai struck many as madness.
Lochte, though, has never worried about spreading himself too thin, in or out of the water. With his colorful wardrobe and carefree demeanor, he comes across as someone who would be fun to get to know over a pitcher of beer; who, indeed, would happily do the pouring.
His world championships were almost derailed by a motor scooter accident. He has also sustained injuries while break dancing and skateboarding. Gregg Troy, his longtime coach, conceded, “I’m dealing with a 27-year-old man who lives on the edge a little bit.”
In Shanghai, Lochte aced his screen test to be the leading man of the London Games, which means that for the next 11 months, he will be treated like a movie star.
Will the increased attention cramp Lochte’s style? For those in his inner circle, it is no minor worry.
“If you do anything other than allow him to be himself, he’s not going to be the same athlete,” Troy said.
The two people entrusted with guiding Lochte through fame’s minefield look like Olympic gymnasts. Erika Wright and Shawn Zenga are diminutive in stature, but they think big when it comes to marketing their main man.
Lochte’s endorsements include Speedo, Gatorade and Mutual of Omaha, and the list is growing by the day. After the world championships, Wright and Zenga signed him to a deal, not yet announced, to pitch a product once endorsed by Tiger Woods. Also in the works is a fitness video, shot in the weight room, which will introduce unconventional uses for beer kegs and tractor tires. Lochte hopes to do for strength training what Rodney Yee did for yoga. He wants to increase its mass appeal.
Wright and Zenga showed up at one of Lochte’s meets last summer wearing jeans, high heels and black leather jackets with Team Lochte emblazoned on the back. Nobody was going to confuse them with the buttoned-down management at Octagon, which had previously represented Lochte and continues to work with Phelps and other top swimmers, including the 11-time Olympic medalist Natalie Coughlin.
“That’s what I like about them,” Lochte said. “They’re different, like me.”
He was sitting just off the lobby at a hotel near the Stanford campus. His eyes were half-moons and his voice was sleepy. Lochte perked up when he saw a Gatorade commercial in which his name is mentioned on a nearby flat-screen television tuned to ESPN.
Wright and Zenga are part sharks, part bodyguards and part mother figures, the real-life fusion of the fictional characters Ari Gold, Mr. T and Edna Garrett.
When they are not pursuing deals, they are policing fans like the Chinese man in his 20s at the Shanghai airport who hugged Lochte and would not let go. Or they are monitoring Lochte’s Facebook fan page and blocking women who send inappropriate photographs or messages, a full-time job in itself.
“They make my life 10 times easier,” Lochte said of Wright and Zenga.
Wright’s husband, Tony, is a longtime music manager who has worked with the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and ’N Sync. Wright, a lawyer, says she sees in Lochte the same ineffable aura that helped make Justin Timberlake a household name.
“I know absolutely nothing about swimming,” Wright said, “but what I could tell from the first time I met Ryan is he’s marketable. He has such an ability to reach people, to touch people, to get into people’s hearts because of his nature.”
Few athletes are more competitive or more compassionate than Lochte, who will undress a rival in the water, then give him the shirt off his back. It is bound to be some gem he found while scavenging on the Internet, like the one he wore Wednesday to collect his bronze medal in the backstroke, which had “Google Me!” stripped across the front. If you do, you will find more than two million results.
Lochte’s father, Steve, said: “A member of United States Swimming said to me this week, ‘Not only is your son the fastest swimmer in the world, he’s the most popular swimmer in the world.’ That’s the thing that made me proudest because it’s not because of his winning, it’s because of who he is: a sensitive, loving, giving young man.”
Lochte was born in upstate New York on the next-to-last day of the swimming competition at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. His mother, Ileana, delivered him shortly before the American Rick Carey came through with the gold in the 100-meter backstroke.
He grew up in Daytona Beach, Fla., where his parents were swim coaches. Ileana Lochte oversaw the development of his textbook strokes before his father molded him into a national-caliber swimmer. Then they sent him to Gainesville, where he became a seven-time N.C.A.A. champion under Troy, who oversees the University of Florida program.
Last year, the marriage of Lochte’s parents fell apart as his training was coming together. Steve Lochte, in what he described as “the lowest point of my life,” was charged with driving under the influence and subsequently lost his coaching job at Daytona State College. Last October, he was fined, ordered to do community service and placed on a year’s probation.
Lochte had a long talk with his father. “He wants for everyone to be happy and to enjoy life,” Steve Lochte said. “That was his biggest concern.”
Lochte also reached out to his mother. “The first thing he did was send me money,” she said in a telephone interview from Florida. “I said, ‘No, I don’t need it.’ ”
Ileana Lochte traveled to the world championships with Lochte’s two younger brothers. (He also has two older sisters.) Steve Lochte attended the national championships. Their divorce became final shortly after last year’s championships, in which Lochte handed Phelps his first loss in the 200 individual medley since 2002, to foreshadow his world championship victories over Phelps this summer in the 200 freestyle and the 200 I.M.
“If I want to accomplish what I want to accomplish in the sport of swimming, I have to be able to separate my swimming life and my family life,” Lochte said. “Sometimes, it’s hard because my family is a big part of me. I’ll do anything for them.”
Lochte’s driven side does not get enough attention. He worships the rapper Lil Wayne but twice turned down opportunities to see him perform — at a pre-Super Bowl party in Miami and at an Orlando concert — because he would have had to miss training.
Lochte turned 27 on Wednesday but felt years older as he made his way gingerly toward the Avery Athletic Center exit, every muscle aching. A group of girls was waiting outside the gate. Some had racing caps for Lochte to sign. Others held handmade signs wishing him a happy birthday or imploring him to follow them on Twitter.
Lochte autographed every item thrust at him, smiled on cue for photographs and made small talk with his admirers, a few of whom were old enough to be his mother.
Matt Grevers, a 2008 Olympian who had just won the 100 backstroke at Lochte’s expense, patted him on the back and continued walking toward the parking lot. Lochte kept signing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)