[Mysteriouschic]

I enjoyed watching the swimming. Suprised at Phelps but Ryan Lochte was amazing!. So glad he broke the world record.

[Bryci]

(Original post by johnharris19944)
Stephanie Rice what a shame, really feel for her its so obvious her shoulder injury has affected her. She was close to tears in the interview afterwards and it was really horrible. The fact she even made the finals was amazing with her shoulder problem but people in Australia are giving her grief now for pitty sake. Sometimes i think we are awful losers when it comes to sports, mentality is gold or your a failure. Hopefully she does better in the 200m IM which is her best event.

Shes had an injury? I thought her form just tailed off and she got lazy sort of, if thats the case then i take back what i thought.

[Malevolent]

(Original post by Bryci)
Shes had an injury? I thought her form just tailed off and she got lazy sort of, if thats the case then i take back what i thought.

Yup and its not just some pansy injury its been a long running one since Beijing, she had to skip the Commonwealth games two years ago because of it and forced her to have surgery on it to plug it up and in doing so its forced her to scale back her training vastly or else it could come back again her training has to be bare minimum to avoid damage. She has hardly tested the shoulder until today. A sprinter might be able to get away with restricted preparations much like Tyson Gay has but if your a 400m IM swimmer you wont. Its one of the most grueling events in the pool bar the 1500m freestyle.

The fact she even tried to participate was commendable and its horrible that some people in Sydney have suddenly turned on her.

[manupalace]

(Original post by roh)
100 free look out for James Magnussen (AUS) and errrm Magnussen really. He's that much better! Nathan Adrian (USA), James Roberts (AUS) and Cielo (BRA) are the other that come to mind. If you swim a lot to give you an idea of the speed of these guys Magnussen's PB from earlier this year is 47.10.

Women's 200 fly probably Ellen Gandy, genuine Brit medal hope.

200 breast. Kosuke Kitajima (Japan), probably the greatest breastroker ever, and his big rival Daniel Gyurta (Hungary). Kitajima's team mate Ryo Tateshi is also pretty good.

Men's 4x200. Sadly a lot of the big stars (notably Phelps and Lochte) will likely be rested for the Heats but Yannick Agnel may be swimming for the French team. USA, France and China are the squads to watch out for.

Very jealous!



Sadly, yes. I think some national bodies (USA swimming maybe) abolished them for NRs but the FINA WRs from 2008 and 2009 still stand.

All the textile and supersuit times are compared in a good article here.

Thanks, a very interesting read, for some reason I thought it had been agreed that there would be 2 sets of world records but guess that doesn't look likely to happen.

[Muesca]

(Original post by Mysteriouschic)
So glad he broke the world record.

Lochte didn't break any world records yesterday....


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

[Malevolent]

Watch out for Missy Franklin another young one who could be destined for big things...

[roh]

What did the Aussies do there? 48.03 from Magnussen and 48.09 from a flying start for Roberts?! Sullivan and Targett both produced what was expected of them with 47.68 and 47.83 respectively but the 'weapons of mass destruction' did not!

Amazing split from Agnel though, could ride that high to 200 free gold tonight I expect.

[Malevolent]

Greg Troy made a huge error putting in Lochte, does anyone else feel he made the call with his heart rather then his head, Anchor should never have been Lochte, hes not a brilliant 100m freestyle and he was shattered if I'm not wrong he had 3 events prior to the final of the 4x100 rely.

[Mysteriouschic]

(Original post by Muesca)
Lochte didn't break any world records yesterday....


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

Oh yeah I meant to say Michael Phelps record.

[notnek]

So the list of individual events (men and women) for each sport is:

Athletics: 47
Swimming: 34
Wrestiling = Cycling = Gymastics : 18
...

Now I enjoy watching the swimming but 34 events just seems like too many. Athletics is made up of many different sports so it makes sense that there are 47 gold medals available. But swimming just feels like one major sport that deserves the same amount of medals as a sport like cycling but not 34.

In short, we're humans not fish so why are there fewer running events (26) than swimming events (34)?

[BDSyes]

Swimming is one of the sports I actually enjoy watching, so the more the better.

[RtGOAT]

(Original post by notnek)

In short, we're humans not fish so why are there fewer running events (26) than swimming events (34)?

The only thing you can vary with running is distance. With swimming you can vary strokes and distance therefore there are more competitions.

[boba]

because theres different stroke for swimming as well as distances whereas for running theres only distance?

[notnek]

(Original post by RtGOAT)
The only thing you can vary with running is distance. With swimming you can vary strokes and distance therefore there are more competitions.

Well there are different ways humans can run. How about they introduce the 100m hop?

I just feel that 34 swimming events is a misrepresentation of the sporting ability of a nation when you look at the final medals table.

[py0alb]

Agree entirely. Because they're all so similar, its far too easy for one contestent to win a ridiculous amount of medals.

Having different strokes is stupid, frankly; its like having three different medals for the 100m running, hopping and skipping.

There is no logical reason to have a different number of swimming races to running races.

[roh]

(Original post by johnharris19944)
Greg Troy made a huge error putting in Lochte, does anyone else feel he made the call with his heart rather then his head, Anchor should never have been Lochte, hes not a brilliant 100m freestyle and he was shattered if I'm not wrong he had 3 events prior to the final of the 4x100 rely.

Possibly, but I don't think it was as massive an error as some have made it out to be.

Lochte split a 47.74. The only swimmer from their morning relay who split faster than that in the morning was Matt Grevers (47.54), and he'd swum the 100 back semis just beforehand, even more recently than Lochte's 200 free, so there's no guarantee he'd be able to replicate it a bit tired. Feign swam the lead leg in 48.5 (I think) and a flying start isn't worth 3 quarters of a second.

In previous years the only comparison to Lochte was Phelps in 2008, when he did 200 free beforehand too, and he split a 47.5 lead off that day so it's definitely possible for a world class all rounder in top form to pull it off.

Given Lochte plans to do the 200 back/200IM double on the same night we can probably safely say he is as prepared as anyone for a quick turnaround, certainly more likely to have trained for it than Grevers.

He's riding a high right now and confidence always helps.

Another factor Troy may have been thinking of is he would be planning on being head to head with the Aussies for the final leg, not the French. The Aussies were swimming Roberts on the final leg, who's pretty untested internationally and turning and seeing the best swimmer in the world right now might have spooked him a bit. As it turned out he was head to head with Agnel, who's a lot more experienced and unlikely to be phased by Lochte's reputation.

Even if he'd swum Grevers instead and Grevers had matched his morning swim (which would be far from guaranteed given he swam just before) France would still win by 0.2. Agnel's last leg was just that good and I think the Americans could have swum whoever they liked from their team, they just didn't have the firepower on their roster on the day.

[roh]

(Original post by py0alb)
Agree entirely. Because they're all so similar, its far too easy for one contestent to win a ridiculous amount of medals.

Having different strokes is stupid, frankly; its like having three different medals for the 100m running, hopping and skipping.

There is no logical reason to have a different number of swimming races to running races.

The strokes are similar, but modern swimming has made that so (notably with underwater kick becoming vital for all of fly, free and back) and it wasn't always the case. There was no one like Spitz until Biondi, possibly, and then Phelps. Now we have 2 at once in Phelps and Lochte.

Also, breastroke is totally different. The only breastroker I can think of with any international success outside breast is Eric Shanteau, who got a bronze in the 200IM in 2009.

It's been tradition for so long now I can't see it changing, which events would you take out?

[fudgesundae]

(Original post by py0alb)
Agree entirely. Because they're all so similar, its far too easy for one contestent to win a ridiculous amount of medals.

Having different strokes is stupid, frankly; its like having three different medals for the 100m running, hopping and skipping.

There is no logical reason to have a different number of swimming races to running races.

So true. The top all time medal tables are dominated by swimmers. If Bolt could run, hop and skip the 100m and 200m then he would have 8 golds as well

[bodie]

There's four different strokes due to the evolution and history of swimming, and now that they're so well established it is nigh on impossible that any of them will ever be removed.

[Benniboi1]

I think it is ridiculous that someone can come away with 8 golds from one Olympics from swimming events. Bolt maybe could attempt the long jump and triple jump or even hurdles but they're all a lot more different than just doing different strokes in swimming so I doubt anyone could get a jumping AND running gold at the same games.