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Pool and Open Water Swimming: Do Not Swallow the Water

selkie

By selkie
in 2016 Olympics

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sab85
sab85

"Nathan,  what happened with this swim?" [Mind you,  he had just won a bronze medal] "Well I didn't have the fastest time in the pool" Love it.  I wish all the athletes would answer stupid q

Daisy
Daisy

History you guys: we share a border and an olympic record and history.   

TobinAlbers
TobinAlbers

Gotta love Cody Miller's whooping it up with his personal best and placing bronze. He was high fiving and punching the air like he won gold. Too cute.

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blackwing

blackwing

11 minutes ago, Kromm said:

Well she probably has her endorsement deal, if she needs one now. 

Then again, if we're being honest, the endorsement deal baby here is gonna be Simone. She's pretty much designed to walk out of this with all the Wheaties Boxes and Sports Drink endorsements she needs.

Simone Biles or Simone Manuel?  Sadly, I don't think Simone Manuel will be as big as you might think.  Ledecky is obviously the face of US women's swimming.  And Dirado has four medals.

Maya Dirado is taking a job with McKinsey, one of the premier, if not the best, management consulting firms in the country   So difficult to land a job there.  Clearly she's extremely intelligent as well as a gifted athlete.

Yay for Anthony Ervin!  What an accomplishment to win the same event at both ages 19 and 35!  

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Kromm

Kromm

(edited)
3 minutes ago, blackwing said:

Simone Biles or Simone Manuel?  Sadly, I don't think Simone Manuel will be as big as you might think.  Ledecky is obviously the face of US women's swimming.  And Dirado has four medals.

Maya Dirado is taking a job with McKinsey, one of the premier, if not the best, management consulting firms in the country   So difficult to land a job there.  Clearly she's extremely intelligent as well as a gifted athlete.

Yay for Anthony Ervin!  What an accomplishment to win the same event at both ages 19 and 35!  

I meant Manuel, but I imagine both.

Ledecky is the obvious face, but Manuel is the face of a movement they likely didn't consider they need/want and will benefit from--getting African-Americans involved in swimming.

I could well see her being the face of the YMCA/YWCA or something like that. I suppose it depends on if that's how she got into it herself (no idea). 

Edited by Kromm
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Aliconehead

Aliconehead

(edited)
4 minutes ago, Kromm said:

I meant Manuel, but I imagine both.

Ledecky is the obvious face, but Manuel is the face of a movement they likely didn't consider they need/want and will benefit from--getting African-Americans involved in swimming.

I could well see her being the face of the YMCA or something like that. I suppose it depends on if that's how she got into it herself (no idea). 

Us Swimming has been big into getting minorities into swimming. Something like 70% African American children can not swim where it is 40% of white children.  This has been a huge push in US swimming for years.  Really since Cullen

Edited by Aliconehead
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methodwriter85

methodwriter85

Just now, Cherpumple said:

I can't even imagine what's going through Schooling's head right now. Beating not one, not two, but THREE of the giants in your field all at once must be an incredible rush of emotions.

It would be nice to have heard him talk about it instead of the continuing slobberfest on Michael Phelps. (And I'm saying this as someone who DOES like him.)

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Kromm

Kromm

6 minutes ago, methodwriter85 said:

It would be nice to have heard him talk about it instead of the continuing slobberfest on Michael Phelps. (And I'm saying this as someone who DOES like him.)

Bingo.

I don't care what NBC usually does.

Other than a Canadian, I doubt they could find a more US audience friendly interview.  And the angle of BEATING Phelps and those others demanded it. I what was Phelps gonna say?  Shrug, and "I did good". That's all we heard. Any idiot in the NBC Control Room should have known that.  Schooling had actual stuff to SAY, in contrast, I'd wager.

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selkie

selkie

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2 hours ago, briochetwist said:

Just wondering what you think of the other gold medal winner, Canada's Penny Oleksiak who has also come out of nowhere. She's been an Olympian for like 6 days, has won 4 medals and turned 16 last month!

There's what's considered to be a perfectly normal teen phenom development curve that's relatively unquestioned, unless you're Russian or Chinese. Penny right now is pretty much where Sarah Sjostrom was in 2009.

56 minutes ago, Kromm said:

I hope this guy who won doesn't speak English. Because if he DOES then NBC has NO EXCUSE to go to Phelps instead.

Fuck you, NBC.

(okay, it does occur to me that perhaps the media from the guy's home country might have "dibs", so NBC gets one more chance after the commercial break...)

Like a lot of swimmers from tropical locations that don't have a high-powered junior development program in swimming, Schooling ended up at the Bolles School in Florida for his high school years. There was a point a few years back when Schooling, 100 backstroke champ Ryan Myrphy, and Canadian rising star Santo Condorelli were all on the Bolles high school team together (yes, they've still got all the relayz records there) and then Caleb Dressel, who got a gold on the 4x100 FR here and went to a public high school in the area, would swim with the Bolles club team when it wasn't high school season.

Ledecky's time tonight would have gotten er around 28th in the men's field at last year's world championships, which is pretty much as high as a woman will ever match up against the guys.

Thrilled for Ervin. After he dropped out of Cal, every so often, there would be a rumor of him living on someone's couch in New York, but no real confirmation of what was happening with him until he reappeared in the Bay area and showed back up on the USADA testing lists somewhere around the end of 2010. And then there was much rejoying since he was such a talent we'd thought out of the sport way too soon

Raachel2008

Raachel2008

(edited)

Schooling talked to other networks and he has a perfect American English. Said Phelps is the greatest and that he was incridibly happy to win.

Ervin was extremely gracious, said he didn't win alone, it was a "team effort": team US, all his trainers, family, friends, schools, and country. He was asked about Tokyo and  said he will just keep swimming so who knows what may happen - but he was laughing and it was pretty clear that he is done with the Olympics.

Sue me, but I think Nathan Adrian is HOT.

Edited by Raachel2008
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KenyaJ

KenyaJ

(edited)
2 hours ago, Ohwell said:

I love that it looks like DiRado and Manuel are true besties, the way they hug each other.  

Judging from Simone's Twitter timeline, she, Simone, and Lia Neal seem very close. The three of them were adorable last night and again tonight.

2 hours ago, Raachel2008 said:

Sue me, but I think Nathan Adrian is HOT.

I can't imagine this is a controversial opinion anywhere on earth.  :-)

Edited by KenyaJ
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Readalot

Readalot

WTF Ledecky!  So amazing, surreal!  I feel like I can't breathe when I'm watching her lol. Watching the West Coast feed now. And congrats to Schooling too!   DiRado! Happiness! Ervin! Sweetness! Phelps seemed gracious in the interview afterward. I love seeing the pictures of both Ledecky and Schooling when they were younger with Phelps. Who knows what kind of spark those encounters gave to these future Olympians! - I have to admit a have a heightened interest in swim this year.  My daughters BFF and another good friend are competitive swimmers. Her BFF is part of a swimming family dynasty (have all the HS and most county records. Two have NCAA rings). Two years ago there were whispers of being Olympic ready. My daughter said her BFF's family invited her to go to Rio if it came down to it.  I have to admit as the time got closer I was nervous because of Zika and all the infrastructure issues, crime etc., it would be hard for us to decide to let her go. June 22nd was the day to fly out to the Olympic trials but alas it was not to be this time around. But the two of them earned college scholarships, one Ivy so let's see what happens for Japan. Her BFF and family know many of the swim Olympians. Many though are swimming for countries other than USA.  I know first hand how hard these athletes work and how much a family sacrifices. What an accomplishment to make it this far even if one does not medal. (Her friend's relative qualified to go to Rio in a different event but the family pulled her back. Not known why at this point.) 

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katisha

katisha

2 hours ago, Cherpumple said:

He didn't talk to the BBC. They only interview British athletes.

Well, Schooling spoke to the Australian poolside interviewer (he had to do something since Australia was not represented in the race!) And he sounded very American and is a nice young guy who was thrilled to have beaten some of the greats!

Phelps looked happier after winning his silver than he has after some of his wins. What's up with that?

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NUguy514

NUguy514

8 hours ago, jjj said:

Fifth Olympics (Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London Rio), with eight gold medals in Athens and Beijing.

Slight correction here: Phelps won eight medals in Athens, but only six of them were gold; the other two were bronze.  What a loser, right?

10 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

For someone like me who only follows the sport once every four years, Simone Manuel did indeed seem like someone who came from out of nowhere.

If you follow the sport only once every four years, then what do you really know about any of the up-and-coming swimmers?  Wouldn't the vast majority of these young swimmers be coming "out of nowhere" for you?  I mean, why not express the same doping fears about Adam Peaty or Maya DiRado or Joseph Schooling or Ryan Murphy or Penny Oleksiak or Lilly King or Mack Horton or Kyle Chalmers or Dmitriy Balandin?  Peaty, Murphy, and maybe Schooling and King were heavily to slightly favored in their events, but the others were not really expected to win gold and did anyway; frankly, I'd say Chalmers', DiRado's, and Balandin's wins were bigger surprises than Simone Manuel's win.  I think it was very unfair to single Manuel out specifically.

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katisha

katisha

4 minutes ago, selkie said:

Though Chalmers did have a really awesome split for the otherwise shambolic men's 4x100 free relay in Kazan last year. He needs to be isolated from the rest of the Aussie men's team save Horton to avoid him catching the Olympic suckage the rest of them seem to have come down with.

I know, right?  Surely there's no way they will let McEvoy swim the freestyle leg of the 4x100 medley relay?  I don't care how many fast times he's had in the last couple of years - for whatever reason, he has had an absolute shit of a meet.   I've been wondering if it's actually his studious nature bringing him undone.  They keep saying how much he thinks about and analyses the sport and maybe he's just OVERthinking things.  At the end of the day, anybody who makes an Olympic final is obviously an excellent swimmer so what separates the winners from the losers is much more of a psychological issue (obviously barring freakishly good swimmers like Ledecky, Phelps, Thorpe, etc).  Purely going by recent times, this should have been a far better meet for Australia than it has been.  Something's wrong somewhere in the process.

luvbadtv

luvbadtv

14 hours ago, Kromm said:

Hmm. I wonder why Katie's media team didn't bleach her teeth.  Bit o' yellow there.

Some swimmers teeth are yellowed by the chlorine.  My daughter's teeth would get really dark.  The dentist could clean them back to their regular color, but maybe Katie doesn't have time!

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briochetwist

briochetwist

Was over at a friends last night and watched some of the NBC swimming coverage on DVR.  Good Lord, I get it now. I totally get it. First off, why is Ryan Seacrest always on the screen? Why is he even in Rio???  Second, I'm astonished that NBC hasn't turned the entire country against Michael Phelps, because it's all about him, ALL THE TIME! With special treatment like that, kudos to the US swimming team for not 'accidentally' drowning him.

And Debbie Phelps, the baby, and the girlfriend get more coverage than most athletes. Enough already.

I suggest watching the CBC coverage next time. You learn a little about each of the swimmers, the winner gets big praise, and then they move on to the next race.

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jjj

jjj

(edited)

Okay, not everyone on this thread will want to see this, but many will -- and ignore the title and image of the video -- it is not about the pool.   It is a video of interviews with Phelps, Bob Bowman, Phelps' father, Ray Lewis (Ravens' linebacker) and Phelps' fiancee about the events that led to his time in rehab, and what happened there, and how he got on track to train for Rio.  It is not a bit sentimental, and feels very honest -- swimming only frames the beginning and end.  You can see how hard the estrangement has been on Phelps' father.  I roll my eyes at self-help books, but one apparently was what Michael needed to hear.  And his father made me cry. 

Edited by jjj
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Kromm

Kromm

(edited)
1 hour ago, MattDuffysCat said:

A little delayed but, alright alright alright! If only they were shirtless.

Okay, but the one of the left smells like a mix of chlorine and hair gel, and the one on the right kind of smells like a mix of weed and funk (he doesn't use deodorant).

Edited by Kromm
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DollEyes

DollEyes

(edited)

  One more who's Team Phelps. Time and time again, Michael Phelps has proven why swim-wise he's the GOAT for a reason. Olympic Gold medals aren't participation trophies, which are given just for showing up. They must be earned honestly, which Phelps has over 20 times and counting. As for the media coverage, ITA that it's been excessive to say the least, but it's not like Phelps has acted like the Kanye West of swimming, constantly going on batshit crazy rants about how great he is and I don't think that he would claim that he's made Katie Ledecky & Joseph Schooling famous just because he was famous first. While Phelps has made big mistakes in the past, rehab and fatherhood seem to have changed him for the better. Sobriety and parenthood have brought out Phelps' kinder and gentler sides. Phelps' comforting Ryan Held when Held cried during the Relay Gold medal ceremony was sweet. Even when Phelps loses, he wins. When Phelps lost to Schooling, he was humble and gracious in defeat-unlike, say, Hope Solo.   As for Phelps' finger-wagging after beating LeClos and winning another medal in the process, IMO that was confidence, not arrogance.  The way I see it,when an Olympian has won as many medals and mostly gold ones as Phelps has and when one of their competitors "[pokes] the tiger," to paraphrase Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines, they can throw at least a little shade after kicking their ass, which Phelps did.  About Boomer Phelps, I think he's adorable. At least he knows how to act in the stands, unlike Katinka Hosszu's husband or Aly Raisman's parents. Re Phelps' in 2020, I wouldn't mind. At this point, Phelps has nothing left to prove unless he wants to prove it, as far as I'm concerned.

 

  Re Katie Ledecky, WOW! She was so far ahead of the other swimmers in the 800 M that she could have gotten out of the pool, gone to the bathroom, gotten back in and still broken her record. If Phelps is retiring for real after Rio, then he's leaving the sport in great hands. 

  Re Ryan Lochte, I thought that he would have at least put up a fight against Phelps in their 200 M IM race, but he failed. Speaking of fails, about Lochte's new 'do, platinum blonde isn't a good look for him, and apparently the chlorine in the pool agrees, hence his hair changing colors, ranking up there with Lochte's other bad decisions like the grills, the "reality" show and "Jeah." Ryan Lochte is pretty and a great swimmer, but most of the time his stupid doesn't just burn; it's a full-fledged backdraft. 

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Wow. Big tats on [Anthony Ervin].

And he's still hot. 

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Shove off Nathan, Ervin is my new Cal Olympic Boyfriend. :)

Anthony Ervin's amazing, but Nathan Adrian can crash on my couch anytime. ;) 

Edited by DollEyes
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superdeluxe

superdeluxe

With it being Michael Phelps' last race tonight, I am shocked NBC hasn't dedicated their entire Olympic coverage to him.  Although, I did see an ultra dramatic promo for the race and I rolled my eyes so hard, they're just coming down right now.

 

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It is a video of interviews with Phelps, Bob Bowman, Phelps' father, Ray Lewis (Ravens' linebacker)

Well, that's another reason to add to the list -- he's got Ray Lewis speaking about him.

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jjj

jjj

1 hour ago, DollEyes said:

  One more who's Team Phelps. Time and time again, Michael Phelps has proven why swim-wise he's the GOAT for a reason. Olympic Gold medals aren't participation trophies, which are given just for showing up. They must be earned honestly, which Phelps has over 20 times and counting. [snip] When Phelps lost to Schooling, he was humble and gracious in defeat-unlike, say, Hope Solo.  

Yes, he saw the results, and immediately went over to Schooling to congratulate him.  Then later, NBC showed the picture of Phelps and Schooling from 2008 -- it was adorable! 

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