The Leaving London Series: Missy Franklin

Sorry for the 24 hour delay... we'll make this is two post Sunday...

This just in... Missy Franklin is not Katie Hoff.

In 2008 Katie Hoff was supposed to be the female equivalent of her North Baltimore peer Michael Phelps.  After a series of inconsistent performances in Beijing, Hoff had a disastrous 2012 US Olympic Trials and was unable to qualify for the US Olympic team for London.

Coming into the 2012 London Games, Missy Franklin was the new hotness in American swimming, but those who were wise waiting for Franklin to deal with the pressure of swimming at it's highest level before appointing Franklin as the Queen of the swimming world.

Coming out of London...

GOLD in the 100 & 200BK with a dominating World Record performance in the 200BK.
GOLD in the 4x100MR and 4x200FR relays
BRONZE in the 4x100FR relay.

4th in the 200FR and 5th in the 100FR.

The 17-year old Franklin is the real deal.  She already dominates the backstroke world and she's quickly moving into the realm of the super elite of the freestyle world.  At 6'1" Franklin has all the tools to continue to emerge and become the best swimmer in the history of women's swimming.

Franklin will undergo significant change in the next quadrennial, the most important change will be when she graduates high school a year from now, Franklin will likely undergo a coaching change.  Todd Schmitz has done a brilliant job bringing Franklin to the top of the sport but given Franklin's well documented interest in swimming in university and competing in the NCAA she's going to have to leave her comfort zone and continue to progress, which is far from an easy process.  For every Elizabeth Beisel who went from her club team to Gregg Troy at Florida and continued her success through to these London Olympic Games, there are plenty of swimmers who leave their smaller clubs and struggle to find success with their new programs (see: Knutson, Dagny).  Never discount the coach/swimmer relationship, it's an important bond to athletes and changing coaches is often an imperfect science no matter how great the swimmer or how brilliant the coach, sometimes the transition is just not successful.

If Franklin manages a successful coaching transition she's well positioned to be a threat to win 6, 7, 8 medals and the possibility of an 8 gold medal Phelpsian program should be a live option.

LATER TODAY... Australia, Germany, and their London Struggles