Looking Back: 2008

Briefly looking back at 2008 I realize its going to be a hard year to top. So many changes for the good: changes for the team, my family, and myself. How about a Top Five?


5. Adding to the Family. Many of the swimmers have had a chance to meet Izzy the newest member of our family. She's a Pug/Shar-Pei mix who is quite energetic.

4. 2008 Olympic Trials in Omaha, NE. I got the chance to fly to Omaha, NE for the 2008 Olympic Trials. It was great to watch the greatest swimmers in this country go at it for a shot at the ultimate swimming dream. But the highlight for me was to be there to see four former GCIT/GPAC team members swim in the meet: Bill Cregar, Mike Joyce, Jamie Marks, and Christian Sprang. You can look back on the Trials and Olympic Games through my blog posts from the summer.

3. World Champions! I have friends who think October 29th will be the most memorable October Day in my life...more important than October 4th. I've been waiting my entire life to be able to witness a World Championship in Philadelphia and hoping the entire time it would be brought here by the Phillies. To see the players on that team come together through injuries and other problems to hoist the championship trophy in October was amazing. I also took note of the way the manager, Charlie Manuel, conducted himself and drove the vehicle that brought the team to the World Series Title.

2. GCIT Swimming becomes Greater Philadelphia Aquatic Club. By the beginning of July I was certain my time with GCIT was coming to a close. I was getting inquiries from other teams (club and college) and I knew that working under the umbrella of GCIT was no longer in my best interest. Then on July 8th the newly appointed Superintendent at GCIT informed me the school wished to cease opearation of the Club Team and have a new private company take its place and pay the school pool rent. This became an opportunity to put together a program with the fixed goal of becoming one of the best club teams in the country. GCIT would still get the money they were making off of the team over the last few years while the new company would be able to provide for the swimmers on the team in a more direct and focused manner without the overhead of a public school system. GPAC allowed Tjitske and I to stay in the Philadelphia area (our first choice all along) and gave the coaching staff more tools to help the swimmers become the best they can be.1. The Wedding. Yes, October 4th will be the most memorable October date in my life. I have been blessed to have met someone as wonderful and supportive as Tjitske. Most importantly, supportive of the path I have chosen with this program. We had a beautiful day for a wedding and a great time in Aruba on the honeymoon.

YYYYYYEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!

Finally. Just plain finally. To finally have a World Championship in this city is amazing. For it to be the Phillies who have brought that World Championship here is a dream come true.

There will be no practice on Friday. If you go to the parade or not, enjoy the day. We'll see you at the meet on Saturday.

Dr. Alan Goldberg's Website

Hopefully everyone got as much out of the presentation by Dr. Goldberg yesterday as the coaching staff. I am sure many of you would like to follow up with his website check out all of the stuff he has under "Free Online Resources". If you like what you see there are plenty of great products he has available for purchase.

The website is: www.competitivedge.com

Back...

Yeah, so with everything that has been going on over the last two months I kind of completely forgot about this blog. It was not until last night when I went online to read my mother-in-law's blog regarding her work in Haiti that the light bulb went off in my head. So I took a brief moment today to change the name of the blog, the banner, and a couple of the links. Don't expect much out of this blog for the next month of so. We are really working hard to get everything on track for the team and this is something that has to take a backseat to those efforts.

But we will be back posting very soon...until then GO PHILS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Live Michael Phelps Chat from Chicago 2016 Committee

Some of you may know that Chicago is one of the finalists to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Having been in the city this past weekend I think it would do very well hosting the Games with its biggest bonus being the large number of knowledgeable and enthusiastic sports fans in the city. You would not believe the hospitality shown to us (dressed in complete Phillies garb) by Cubs fans over the course of the weekend. This is a city that will truly embrace the events of the Summer Olympics as well as the ideals of the Games.

Today the Committee working to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago will host a live video web chat with Michael Phelps. Phelps will talk about his historic campaign in Beijing as well as his support for the Chicago 2016 bid. The chat will begin at 6pm Eastern Time but the chat room will open early for people to talk about Chicago's Summer Olympic bid.

To access the live chat and for more information go here: www.chicago2016channel.com.

For more information on the Chicago 2016 bid visit the official website.

This Blog Will Be A Changin'

This blog will be undergoing some changes over the next couple of weeks for obvious reasons. Don't get used to the current name because that will go away once we settle everything with the team.

Be excited! The changes coming for the team are exactly what we need to advance this program now and ten years from now.

FINAL Team Tryout

We will have one final team tryout on Wednesday, September 3rd at 6 pm. YOU MUST REGISTER FOR THIS TRYOUT BY EMAILING msprang@gcit.org.

Some of our practice groups are at or beyond capacity and, thus, have been closed for further registrations. We are trying to come up with a way to accommodate all interested swimmers, however that may not be possible.

We will have more information on the situation at the tryout on the 3rd.

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.