Wow...I mean WOW! Dara Torres is simply amazing!! Tonight at the spry age of 40 she broke her own American Record in the 50 freetsyle en route to winning her second national title of the meet. This brought to mind the fact that about 18 years ago Mark Spitz tried a comeback in his 40's. Let's just say that Spitz' comeback never really got off of the ground (READ: failed miserably). Dara is an amazingly gifted athlete who, right now at the age of 40, looks like a good bet to make her 5th Olympic Team. Oh, and her time tonight would be tied for the second fastest time in the world this year.
On a more local note, Erik Vendt broke a 20 year old meet record in the 800 free tonight. Vendt's time of 7:49.75 broke the previous meet record established in 1987 by Sean Killion. Simply put, Killion was the greatest swimmer to ever come out of South Jersey. Sean graduated from Cherry Hill West and went on to a great college career at Cal and was a member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic Team. Sean was named the South Jersey Male High School Swimmer of the Century in 1999. Sean was a great role model for all of the younger swimmers (myself included) in South Jersey during the 1980's. Sean proved that great swimmers don't just come from California or Texas...they can come from South Jersey as well. As much as I love to see fast swimming, it was a little sad to see Sean's record broken.
The end of Senior Nationals means the beginning of Junior Nationals is on the horizon. Seven GCIT swimmers will be in action during the week. They have been training hard since the beginning of April for this meet and I am very optimistic heading into Monday's events.
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