By David

Swimwatch has just received the following email.

To whom it may concern:

I just was made aware of your printing an e-mail, I sent to meet organizers, in Missouri, back in February. I am not sure where you got ahold of my e-mail, but you do not have all of the facts. Numerous coaches complained. I was the only one who hit the, “reply all”, button. In the Florida LSC, which I have coached in for 25 years, the deadline is the deadline!

I appreciate rules and deadlines. Unfortunately, coaches who make mistakes, do not. Jay Fitzgerald and I are friends, and he had no problem with my objection. It was another South Florida Coach, who could not enter his two swimmers correctly, by the deadline. The meet organizers did offer time trials, which I supported.

Also, concerning my teams performance, we were the only ones not wearing fastskin suits and before each prelim session, we came in early and worked out, 7,000-8,000 meters. Keep up the informative work, but please research the facts more carefully in the future.

Larry Shofe

Head Swim Coach

Sarasota YMCA Sharks

Most of the email is confusing and has little relevance to the original Swimwatch Missouri story. For example:

1. Shofe says he does not know how Swimwatch got hold of his email. In the next sentence he says he “hit the reply all button.” Well, puzzling as it may be, that’s how we got his email. He sent it to us.
2. Shofe says that coaches who make mistakes don’t appreciate rules and deadlines. That’s just rubbish. Most of us make plenty of mistakes, which never diminish or change our respect for rules and deadlines.
3. I appreciate Shofe’s advice that he and Jay Fitzgerald are friends. What has that got to do with the rest of the United States swimming in the Missouri Meet? I have no idea.
4. We appreciate hearing that Shofe has coached in Florida for 25 years. What has that got to do with the rest of the United States swimming in the Missouri Meet? Again I have no idea.

None of this is all that interesting. The paragraph about his team’s performance though is worth a second look. He says they were the only team not wearing Fastskin suits and prior to each preliminary session they worked out 7,000 – 8,000 meters.

That’s just not true. All but one of our team did not swim in Fastskin suits. At that stage, I think, only Rhi owned a Fastskin suit. More importantly, we spent the meet sitting next to Michael Phelps. He swam most of the meet in his Speedos; understandable given that he was clearly in the middle of his preparation for the Pan Pacific Games. I find it arrogant to suggest that others beat Shofe’s team only because his swimmers didn’t wear Fastskin racing suits; they weren’t really trying. Shofe’s perception of reality appears to be only in his own mind.

But the really interesting bit is the 7,000 – 8,000 workouts. I’ve heard hundreds of coaches make this sort of excuse. The implication is their team would have swum much faster but were in the middle of hard training. I can assure any coaches who’d like to make this excuse that they would not give a darn how far my team had swum prior to them beating us. A win’s a win, and so is a loss.

If it is good enough to turn up, then swim the race as a legitimate event and accept the result. Do not, by implication, diminish the performance of those who beat you by inferring you could have swum faster; that you may have even won the event.

Some time ago I received an email from a swimmer I coached prior to her going to college. He said his college coach always used the “we’re in hard training” excuse, especially when “we got our asses handed to us” by our rivals. It is an excuse borne out of weakness. It is self important and demeaning to others. At the Missouri Meet, Michael Phelps was also obviously in the middle of hard training and never felt the need to make the “7,000 meters” excuse. He also broke a world record, didn’t he?

By David

There are some pretty horrible people involved in the sport of swimming. If your pre-teen sons or daughters are thinking of joining the local swim club warn them that if they are any good they’ll be the subject of criticism, innuendo and down right lies before they reach the top of this sport. She must be taking steroids, he’s certainly on HGH, she’s such a bitch, he can swim fast but what about his grades, it’s well known she’s a drunk; you’ll hear it all.

Just this week Rhi received an anonymous (aren’t they all) email on her blog telling the swimming world that Rhi was the swimmer, referred to in Natalie Coughlin’s book, who caused trouble at the last Olympics when she wasn’t selected in the team to swim the 4×200 final. Well, it wasn’t Rhi. In order not to make the same mistake as the author of the email, I’m going to resist the temptation to say who it was. But, dear author of the email, when you don’t know facts, and in this case you clearly do not, don’t rush into print. You only succeed in displaying your own intellectual limitations.

And finally, this week, Rhi received a second anonymous email that smugly said the author hadn’t heard much from Rhi recently and then said 57 seconds “ouch”. The 57 seconds refers to Rhi’s time in the 100 freestyle in Indianapolis. Rhi doesn’t care about these emails; but I do. They are ignorant and wrong. They are always anonymous and 99% of the time are written by authors who will never know what it’s like to swim at Rhi’s level and would never have the guts to climb back the way she is just now. The struggle to get back was something I always thought was to be admired, not something to be derided by the anonymous.

Besides which, lets look at how Rhi has got on in the last seven months since she left USC. The table below shows the times she swam at her first two or three meets after coming back to Florida. The times she swam at the Spring Nationals and her fastest times in this, her second season back home.

When you are an Olympic gold medalist on your way back to form, that’s not a bad record and certainly does not deserve to be derided by those who have never done better and don’t have the guts to tell us their name.

A couple of articles ago I mentioned how good it was to meet Hayley McGregory. I said she was one of the nicest, upbeat and positive people you could ever meet. Well at the end of this meet in Indianapolis she’s still all those things and she’s the USA National Champion at 100 meters backstroke as well. Her 1.00 puts her amongst the world’s very best. Along with Rhi, Hayley has had her critics. But around here, there are no two finer examples of the fact that really good things take patience.

Twenty eight years ago a fast New Zealand athlete ran a very good 1000 meters. Her run was the sixth or seventh, certainly one of the top ten, fastest times in the world in 1979. Her first 400 was run in a quick 60 seconds, the 800 in 2.04 and the final time 2.38.54. It was the fastest time ever run by a New Zealander, a New Zealand national record.

There could have been no more impressive venue for Alison’s fine run; Berlin’s 1936 Olympic Stadium, on a warm night in August, the site where Hitler displayed his fanatical might, where Jessie Owens ran and jumped better than any man. Standing on the dark warm up field away from the stadium, watching the floodlights shine up through huge concrete columns it was hard not to feel a sense of history, a good place to run fast.

Alison spent the next day driving through East Germany to the West German town of Cologne. There was still time to prepare and post a letter to Athletics New Zealand telling them the news of the Berlin run and request a New Zealand record. Months went by without a reply. A phone call revealed that while the run would be recognized as the fastest run by a New Zealand woman it would not be acknowledged as a national record. The world’s women and New Zealand men had such a record, but it was not going to be for New Zealand women.

Over the years, fine New Zealand administrators and coaches such as Arch Jelley and Murray McKinnon tried to reverse the decision; to no avail. And then this, the last week of July 2007, twenty eight years later and still the fastest time ever run by a New Zealand woman, Murray McKinnon gave it one more try. And do you know what? Justice prevailed. Alison was recognized, a National Record Holder. A grateful athlete was acknowledged by her Federation for a race well run. Along with Kim Robertson’s 200 (1978) and 400 (1980) records Alison’s 1000 is an example of just how fast the old guard used to be. Alison’s run has stood the test of time. The IAAF world ranking lists reveal that the fastest 1000 meter time in the world, so far in 2007, is 2.38.91, still 0.4 of a second slower than Alison ran twenty eight years ago.

It’s an interesting coincidence that Alison took 2 minutes and 38 seconds to set the 1000 meter track record, almost the same time as the 2 minutes and 30 seconds her daughter took to set her national record in the short course 200 meters breaststroke, twenty-two years later.

By David

Please don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not trying to be self important; far from it. But I have attended swim meets ranging from the Aqua Hawks East Coast Champs in Napier, New Zealand to the Olympic Games, and they’re about as far apart as you can get on this earth. And this weekend I’m at the USA National Championships with Rhi Jefrey and John Foster. If you ever get a chance come to a USA Nationals. It’s a hell of a meet, and so far I’ve only seen the first morning.

It’s not that the fastest person is all that fast. You’d expect the winner of the heats of the men’s 200 fly to swim around 1.57 and sure enough that’s what Gill Stovall did. It’s not surprising that Brendan Hansen won his heat in 2.11.50 or that Rebecca Soni won the heats of the same event in 2.28.37 or that Dana Vollmer swam 2.09.82 to record the fastest women’s 200 fly. This is a world class event; you expect world class times.

What does surprise is the bloody depth: the sheer number of fast swimmers. In most countries those that never qualify for the finals here would be lauded as national champions. Just look at this mornings four events. In the women’s 200 fly Melissa Jaeger will watch the 24 finalists tonight after swimming a real good 2.15.46. In the women’s 200 breaststroke a swim of 2.34.34 was still not good enough to get Jullie Stupp one of the 24 night time swims. In the same two events for men, 2.02.32 and 2.20.12 would see you watching the finals on TV. It’s just bloody amazing. With depth like that to watch where else would you want to be?

That depth of course can trip up even the very best. Who would dream that Tara Kirk would have to settle for tenth in the heats of the 200 breaststroke or that Michael Phelps even in one of his few “off-events” the 200 breaststroke would end up eleventh in 2.15.81. The depth of talent is amazing and impressive.

To be part of all this is a small piece of swimming heaven. I might sound like I’ve got a bad case of the “gee-whiz” disease but it’s bloody good to wander around the pool where Skip Kenny (did you know he was once an army sniper – wouldn’t want to misbehave in his pool), Dave Salo, Eddie Reese, Richard Quick and a score of other coaching names ply their trade. It’s fun to just say hello to Michael Phelps as he buys his morning bagel and coffee across the road from our hotel. It is an honor to meet Haley McGregory who was a heart-breaking third in both the 100 and 200 backstroke at the 2004 USA Olympic Trials and remains one of the nicest, upbeat and positive people you could ever meet.

The USA National championships; it’s a fun, it’s serious and great place to be.

By David

While it’s true that British competitors from England, Scotland, and Wales did very well at last year’s Commonwealth Games, I have to take issue with their combined medal tallies being compared to that of Australia, as is being done at Swimnews right now. Reporting the “unretirement” of Britain’s Mark Foster, Swimnews’ Craig Lord states:

“He announced his retirement on the eve of a Commonwealth Games at which he failed to make a final, a Games at which he also predicted that British home nation swimmers would be drowned by Australia. In fact, British swimmers put in what was by far their best performance, falling just one shy gold of Australia’s gold tally and defeating the male Dolphins hands-down.”

Here is the record of swimming medals from the Melbourne Commonwealth Games as reported on their official website.

Lord’s comparison of the combined score of the three UK teams with Australia is rather cheeky. After all, three teams can enter three times the number of competitors; in this case potentially nine swimmers per event compared to Australia’s three. Combining the scores like this has all the validity of saying Pine Crest did not win the recent Florida Invitational Swim Meet because Dynamo, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale combined scored more points.

Lord says the British home nations fell “just one shy gold of Australia’s gold tally”. I think he means just one gold shy of Australia’s tally, or at least I’ve never heard of a shy gold medal.

Even if we go along with Lord and combine the gold medals, my reading of the table says Australia won 18 gold medals and the UK nations of England, Scotland and Wales combined won 15 and that’s three “shy” gold medals short. There seems to be a problem with Lord’s math.

Lord is right about the male gold medal score. The UK total of 12 gold medals is well ahead of Australia’s three. Even England on its own won seven gold medals compared to Australia’s disappointing three.

However, it is interesting to note that if one allocates a normal nine, seven and six points to first, second and third places Australia would beat England 117 to 104. So perhaps even the male result is not quite as “hands down” as Lord would have us believe.

Am I imagining it or does Craig Lord just make stuff up? In our opinion, his site ranks well behind Swimming World Magazine and Timed Finals for accuracy, content and interest. Lord’s is a “legacy website”, popular and highly visible because of its age. The domain was registered on August 7, 1995. Online, age is a huge benefit. Search engines include a website’s age in their assessment of its authority and trustworthiness. That Swimnews is only seven months younger than Yahoo undoubtedly allows Lord to get away with many of his inaccuracies and blunders.

PS: Special thanks to Rae Hoffman for the “legacy” label.