Tonight's Events

Here is what is on tap for tonight, the last night of pool swimming for the Beijing Games:

10:03 pm: Women's 50 Free Final. Dara Torres is the top seed in the race that does not look to be a fast one, judging by the preliminary and semi-final heats. Torres is going to have to swim the perfect race to bring home a medal, let alone the gold. Tonight's race will feature five of the seven fastest women ever in this event, including World Record Holder Libby Trickett and 100 Free Champion Britta Steffen.

10:09 pm: Men's 1500 Free Final. The big story in this race will be top seed and World Record Holder Grant Hackett going for his third straight Olympic victory. Hackett will be pushed from Lane 5 by Canadian Record Holder, 19 year-old Ryan Cochrane as well as American Larsen Jensen, the Silver Medalist from Athens.

10:40 pm: Women's 400 Medley Relay Final. This will be largely a three team race with Great Britain and the United States chasing Australia. The US should get out to a lead on the backstroke leg with World Record Holder Natalie Coughlin. Australia should come back with World Record Holder Leisel Jones, but how much is to be seen. There is no telling how losing the 200 Breast to Rebecca Soni (the New Jersey native who will swim the breaststroke leg for the United States) as well as her World Record in the race will affect her. Jones and Soni will each turn the race over to medalists from the 100 Fly: Christine Magnuson for the United States and Jessicah Schipper for Australia. This race will likely come down to Dara Torres vs. Libby Trickett on the freestyle leg. A lot of this will depend on how each woman can recover from the 50 Free final not 40 minutes prior to the start of the Medley Relay. You may say "it is only a 50", but research has shown the shorter a race is, the more warmdown time is necessary to recover.

10:58 pm: Men's 400 Medley Relay Final. I hope everyone has an appreciation for how close this race is going to be. The United States should get out to a lead of about .50 with Aaron Piersol on the backstroke leg. That lead should seemingly be extended with Brendan Hansen swimming the breaststroke leg. However Hansen has not raced since the 100 Breaststroke Final on Monday morning while Australian Brenton Rickard finished 2nd in the 200 Breaststroke Final on Friday morning (remember, it is Sunday morning in Beijing now). This leads to Michael Phelps swimming the Butterfly leg, his 17th race of these Olympics. He will be up against the Bronze Medalist from the 100 Fly, Andrew Lauterstein. Phelps will turn things over to the hero of the 400 Free Relay, Jason Lezak and the Australians will turn to 100 Free World Record Holder Eamon Sullivan. Lezak should dive into the pool with about a body length lead on Sullivan and if he swims like he did in the 100 Free Final (let alone the anchor leg of the 400 Free Relay) he should be able to hold off Sullivan.

If Phelps is going win his 8th Gold Medal of these Games he is going to have to dig deep to pull out one more spectacular performance. At the same time he is going to need his teammate to have similarly spectacular performances. This is our sport at its absolute finest: largely individual in its nature but no one can achieve all of their goals without their teammates.

I'm not an Angels fan, but I figured a little rally monkey action is appropriate for all four events and all of the swimmers representing the United States tonight. So, just for tonight, join me in believing in the power of the rally monkey!

One for the Ages

Put the conspiracy theory down, Phelps won the race. I have looked all over the internet for someone to wave the flag of conspiracy (and frankly I am shocked that Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post has not). I figured there would be plenty of people out there who were certain their eyes could see the difference of one one-hundredth of a second better than an expertly calibrated electronic timing system. But it seems the only people not convinced of Phelps' victory were the Serbian Olympic officials and journalists (the following quotes are from Pat Forde's espn.com article. Forde, by the way, has done an excellent job covering the swimming events in Beijing):

"I thought Cavic won," fumed Serbian journalist Dejan Stevovic of Sportski Zurnal. "It was obvious."

"But he doesn't have $50 million in sponsors, like that guy," grumbled another Serb.

So today's lesson: be gracious in defeat. I know and appreciate that no one wants to lose. But it does happen to everyone, even Michael Phelps (just not in Beijing). The entire world was not out to get Milorad Cavic. But, judging by the comments from the Serbian journalists, they certainly think that way. Cavic, to his credit was the gracious one. He said he was "stoked" with the results and seemingly proud of the fact he has an Olympic Silver Medal to his name. Its a shame the Serbian journalists, so sure they saw Cavic sneak in for the victory from their vantage point at least 30 feet from the finish, cannot join Cavic on the high road.

Never Again in Our Lifetime...

Michael Phelps is now 5 for 5 for 5: 5 Gold Medals in 5 World Record Times in 5 events. I have been racking my brain to try and come up with the historical significance for what Phelps is doing but there really is no comparison. There certainly is no comparison between what Phelps is doing and what Mark Spitz did in 1972 for two reasons. First, Spitz did not have to swim semi-finals in his events that were 200 meters or shorter as Phelps does. So Spitz swam six fewer races in 1972 than Phelps will in Beijing. But far beyond that is the level of competition Phelps must compete against in 2008. Back in 1972 the number of swimmers outside of the United States who had access to top level funding and coaching to make their Olympic Dreams come true was pretty much limited to the Australians and the Communist Nations (Soviet Union, East Germany, etc.). Only ten countries came home with medals from the swimming events at the 1972 Munich Games: United States, Australia, Canada, East Germany, West Germany, Soviet Union, Hungary, Italy, Japan, and Sweden. So far in Beijing 13 different countries take home medals, including South Korea (first ever swimming medal).

It really does not seem like anything can stop Phelps: not any other swimmer, not leaking goggles, and certainly not the enormous pressure that is riding on this shoulders right now. We all know that Finals heats are being contested in the morning so that NBC can broadcast Phelps' historic quest live in the United States. Every time Phelps swims, wins, and sets a record I get a "Breaking News Alert" email from CBS Sportsline. The only time I usually get these emails is when a major league pitcher has a no-hitter going into the latter part of a game or there is a major trade in the MLB, NFL, NHL, or NBA. Phelps' quest is the top story on every major news network and every local news channel; it is front page news on newspapers throughout the world.

However the most telling sign of the magnitude of Phelps' quest is that yesterday Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and the rest of the USA Basketball team were at the Water Cube to watch him swim. Can you possibly imagine that? They may be members of Team USA and wear the same uniform to the medal ceremony as the rest of the the swimmers...but to come to the venue specifically to watch Phelps swim...and not having a child or other relative competing in that meet? These guys are multi-multi millionaires...Kobe Bryant may be one of the most recognizable athletes in the world. Yet they were at the venue last night, there to see history in the making.

Phelps is now more than halfway through his quest for eight Gold Medals. The stiffest test left will be the 100 Butterfly. Phelps, to my knowledge, has not been beaten in this race since the 2004 Olympic Trials. The person who beat him there, Ian Crocker, set the current World Record in the race and will swim the event in Beijing. Crocker will give Phelps a run for his money (actually Speedo's money) in that race. (READ: its going to be tough for Ryan Lochte to beat Phelps in the 200 IM considering he has the final of the 200 Backstroke less than an hour before the IM Final. That's why I consider the 100 Fly Phelps' toughest race left).

This is something that we may never witness again. I would be surprised if Phelps would attempt this event program in London four years from now and surprised if someone else approaches this level in my lifetime. You do not usually get the chance to witness a once in a lifetime event and actually know how historically significant that event is. Make sure you, your friends, your children...everyone...has the chance to watch these last couple of races.

Live Blogging

Because I can...

Men's 200 Free
That looked real easy, at least to me it did. I really wasn't paying attention to Phelps at all because I just knew he was going to win going away and probably break the World Record. I was completely focused on Peter Vanderkaay. I was ecstatic when he finished third for the Bronze medal. So Phelps is 3 for 3 for 3: 3 events, 3 Gold Medals, 3 World Records. Amazing.

Women's 100 Back
I love the way Coughlin has been swimming lately: go all out, try to catch me. They almost did in this race, but almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Awesome to see Margaret Hoelzer finish third for the Bronze Medal.

Men's 100 Back
OK, the US is officially on fire right now. Piersol and Greevers go 1-2...anyone else thinking there is a carryover effect going on from the 400 Free relay last night? Piersol's finish was awesome and he pulled away from the field in the last 10 meters. He's going to be tough to beat in the 200 Back later on this week.

Women's 100 Breaststroke
Liesel Jones is awesome...but Rebecca Soni (from New Brunswick, NJ and Scarlet Aquatic Club) really closed the gap in the last 25 meters for the Silver Medal. Soni is really going to be a force to reckon with in the 200 Breast later this week.
So this makes four events, and the US has captured 3 Gold, 2 Silver, and 2 Bronze as well as 2 World Records. AWESOME!!

Men's 400 Free Relay Redux

So I've watched this race about 30 times in the last 12 hours at nbcolympics.com. If you haven't seen it again go HERE. You need to download Microsoft Silverlight but its completely worth it.

I think the most exciting thing about the race is the excitement Dan Hicks showed in his call of the last five meters of the race. I can only imagine Hicks and Rowdy Gaines jumping up and down and hugging each other after the race. READ: this is not homerism. Hicks and Gaines are the announcers for the United States broadcast of the swimming events. Their job is to report what is going on in the pool but to make it exciting for the viewers in the United States. Their call of that race was no different than Harry Kalas getting excited about a Chase Utley home run or Merrill Reese "going crazy" after David Akers hits a game winning field goal for the Eagles.

Jason Lezak was beyond amazing on the end of that relay. First off, his start was as good as it can be. Looking at the meet results, his reaction time was .04, that's about as close to false starting as you can get. But when it comes to relay starts, coming as close as possible to false starting makes it a great relay start. Lezak swam the perfect race, getting on the lane line and letting Bernard carry him through the first 50. Its pretty obvious that Bernard over swam the first 25 and Lezak really started to catch him going into the flags at the turn. But check out the underwater video at the finish: Bernard's hips are really flying out of his line. This is a clear sign that he was completely out of gas and trying to do everything he could to miracle his body to that wall. Lezak's split was an unreal 46.06, the fastest 100 freestyle relay split ever by .63. Bernard's relay split was a almost-as-fast 46.73, the fourth fastest 100 freestyle relay split of all time.

Olympic Finals II

I was completely content with not posting anything today, but Jason Lezak's anchor leg just changed all of that. First off, he had one of the best relay starts I have ever seen. He also seemed to keep things under control, not over swimming the first 50. Jason knew he had 100 meters to catch Bernard and he used every one of them to do it.

Its a shame Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines decided to focus on the relay win keeping Michael Phelps' quest for eight Gold Medals alive. Yeah, I know that is the story of the Games and the primary reason they are swimming the Finals in the AM in Beijing. But Mark Schubert, the United States National Team Head Coach and Director, has made it a priority to put ALL of the US relays on top. The United States has not won this particular relay since the 1996 Atlanta Games and getting it back was a huge priority this time around. OK...Dan Hicks just mentioned the fact that the US really wanted this relay back...somewhat redeeming himself.

So was this the greatest relay race in Olympic History? I think we need to wait a little while to make that determination. But I think its safe to say its in the top three along with the US victory in the 2004 Men's 800 Meter Free Relay and the 1984 Men's 800 Freestyle Relay. The latter was an amazing race as Bruce Hayes caught World Record Holder Michael Gross from behind to give the USA the Gold Medal.