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!