Duel in the Pool started last night. Here are some thoughts…
Having Ryan Lochte swim the 400 IM was a great call by the coaching staff. It wasn’t much of a race at the halfway point. Lochte had several seconds on everyone — over 5 on former Florida Gator Dan Wallace — the fiery red Scotsman for touched 2nd. After building such a strong lead over 250 meters Lochte shut it down. Duel in the Pool is a lot like a college dual meet — the goal is simply to touch the wall first.
Simone Manuel and Lia Neal went 1-2 in the women’s 100 Free beating Olympic Gold Medalist Ranomi Kromowidjojo. Manuel set an American Record in 51.69 bettering Natalie Coughlin’s former 51.88. Great to see our American sprinters step up and garner victories!
Matt Grevers said last week he was going to stick with the 100 Free instead of the 200 Back but here he is picking up crucial points for Team USA in the 2 Back. Good thing because Lochte and Tyler Clary both just swum the 4IM. Grevers splits were incredible — descending the final 3 50’s — 28.28/27.71/26.44!
Cody Miller broke Kevin Cordes’ American Record in the 200 Breast by a mere half of a tenth. He’s one of America’s best breaststrokers — a key weakness on the Men’s side of things heading into the 2016 Olympics. Hopefully he can continue to improve in the LCM arena because he is crushing short course right now.
Gorgeous Danish swimmer Jeanette Ottesen loves to race. And that’s exactly hat she did in the 100 Fly. Trans World Sport recently caught up with her — check out this 7 minute video about her as she continues to train for Rio.
Kelsi Worrell continued her American domination of the 100 Fly, breaking Dana Vollmer’s American Record (55.42 vs. 55.59). Vollmer is in the midst of her comeback but Worrell is currently USA’s top flyer.
Beefy T Shields was fantastic in the 100 Fly last night. A personal best time lowered his own American Record by .17 seconds. Out lickity split, nobody, even Laszlo Cseh, could keep up.
James Guy remains a tough guy to beat, as he took the 400 Free victory over Conor Dwyer and Conner Jaeger.
Perhaps the most impressive swim of the first day went to Katie Meili, a current SwimMac Elite/former Columbia superstar. Splitting 1:02.88 in the 100 Breast on the World Record breaking 4 x 100 Medley Relay was SICK! She outsplit Russia’s Yuliya Efimova by nearly half a second. This was before Simone Manuel dropped an intense, electrifying anchor leg to beat the Europe All-Stars and stop the clock faster than any other SCM relay in the history of the World. This obviously couldn’t have been done without Courtney Bartholomew (56.08 Back) and Kelsi Worrell (55.01 Fly) — congratulations to all of them that was a heck of a race!
Team USA also won the Men’s 4 x 100 Medley Relay in American Record fashion. Daniel Gyurta put Europe in the lead at the halfway mark but Tom Shields put an end to that by out splitting Cseh by over a full second. It’s tough to beat Nathan Adrian when he dives into the water ahead of you but Vlad the Impaler gave it his best shot none the less.