The Leaving London Series: Australia & Germany Searching For Answers

The two swimming federations with the most frustration coming out of the London Olympic Games are easily the Australians and the Germans.  Two traditional powerhouse programs with borderline disastrous results in London.

Stephanie Rice was unable to reclaim
the magic she had in Beijing at the
London Olympic Games in 2012

Australian medalists...

GOLD... Women's 4x100FR Relay
SILVER... James Magnussen 100FR
SILVER... Christian Sprenger 100BR
SILVER... Emily Seebohm 100BK
SILVER... Alicia Coutts 200IM
SILVER...  Women's 4x200FR Relay
SILVER... Women's 4x100 Medley Relay
BRONZE... Bronte Barratt 200FR
BRONZE... Alicia Coutts 100FL
BRONZE... Men's 4x100 Medley Relay

German medalists...

SILVER... Thomas Lurz 10km Open Water

ABC Australia did a thorough job analyzing the problems with the Australian swimming program.  Clearly there are a lot of deep resentment within the infrastructure of the sport, where the roles and goals of the executives, the coaches, and the athletes are in contrast.  Just 10 medals, 1 gold... not good, especially from the traditionally strong men's squad.  There were a number of disappointing performances but of particular disappointment to Aussies had to be Brenton Rickard and the performance on the men's 4x100 team, that almost looked like it could of actually used Ian Thorpe.

Brenton Rickard, Aussie breaststroke start and world record holder in the 100BR entering the Olympic Games, saw his world record get smashed by Cameron van der Burgh while Rickard finished a disappointing 6th.

The Australian relay team that many thought were a shoe-in for Gold, the men's 4x100FR relay were out-touched on the last leg by the Russians and the Aussies finished an ultra-disappointing 4th.

The problems on the German side are a little tougher to pin point because there is little out there in terms of the media assessing the German problems.  Zero medals in the pool and just 1 medal from a 32-year old open water swimmer can not be the outcome that the German swimmers were aiming for in London.  Piling onto the German medal drought is that there is not really anyone the German team can point to and say they are building around him or her for future International success.

German freestyle star Paul Biedermann, current world record holder in the 200FR (1:42.00) could only muster a 5th place finish in the 200FR and a time of 1:45.53, which is obviously well off his record best.

On the women's side for Germany, defending Olympic champion and world record holder Britta Steffen finished a disappointing 4th in the 50FR and missed the 100FR Final by quite a bit.

The Germans and the Australians have a lot of rebuilding to do over the next quadrennial.

LATER TODAY... Sun Yang (teaser: he's really fast)

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

The Leaving London Series: Suit Controversy?

Suit controversy?  What suit controversy?

8 World Records in London did a great job of killing the suits meme once and for all.

The only suit subplot in London was the proof that ARENA is back as a major player in the suits world!  ARENA suits in their fun colours were all over the games, the ARENA suits are now all over the Age Group circuit here in Canada, and the only real interesting question is how will Speedo react to get back into the market because FS3 has been a complete and utter bust of a technology and marketing campaign.

Ruta Meilutyte in the new ARENA suit celebrating her breakthrough Gold medal performance
in the 100BR in London

TOMORROW...  Canada's Favourite/US Sweetheart Missy Franklin

The Leaving London Series: Ryan Lochte

With the nature of swimming's popularity cycle coming to a peak every four years at the Olympics, these London Games were a fascinating study in how the general public views swimming as compared to those who follow the sport on a regular basis.

Ryan Lochte was the darling of the swimming community since the Beijing Games.  Seemingly upset with his performance in Beijing, Lochte was a man on a mission over the last 4 years.  The first man to break a world record after the rule revisions with the swim suits.  Lochte owned Twitter, posted videos of his strength training exploits, and seemingly became the most popular swimmer on the planet.  Accessible, personable, the swimmer's swimmer.

However, something changed after Lochte claimed gold in the 400IM in London.

Lochte let down the US general public in the 200FR finishing 4th and was out-touched by the French in the 4x100FR relay... all of a sudden Lochte became more Alain Bernard like...  Jason Lezak would have never "let" the French win.  The casual fans were not in Lochte's corner.  All Lochte's talk about how much he trained to win in London was undone by Yannick Agnel and his brilliant 46.74 split.

After some redemption in the 4x200FR relay that Lochte led off, it was really the brilliant split by Conor Dwyer that set up for Michael Phelps to anchor and pull away for the dominating victory.

200BK... Lochte leads the world for 150m but then Tyler Clary and Ryosuke Irie blew by Lochte who would eventually settle for Bronze.

200IM... Lochte left in the dust of Michael Phelps.

All of a sudden the Lochte narrative is that he is Phil Mickelson so Phelps' Tiger Woods.  But wait, does that narrative stand up?

Here are the general news items on how Lochte is perceived following his Olympic events...

Ryan Lochte is sort of a douche (WWTDD)

Lochte eyes 'DWTS and 'The Bachelor' (UPI & every gossip site on the web)

Bill Simmons of ESPN jokingly listed Ryan Lochte as a -350 betting favourite to be the US team member most likely to have an Olympic village sex-tape "leaked".  In Lochte's defense, Simmons then listed Lochte as the favourite over Usain Bolt who despite US protests is not a member of the US Olympic team...  And this was an easy crack after the flap with Lochte's mother stating that Lochte went on a lot of one-night stands (to paraphrase).

Ryan Lochte WTF?  What happened to the young man who could do no wrong and represented the best of what swimming is, this is pretty low brow stuff.  However, I guess he's launched himself into the popular culture discussion, beyond the swimming bubble.  It's just amazing that the man loved by the swimming community is so dragged through the mud in comparison to the American love affair with the Olympic icon Phelps.

From all reports it appears that Lochte is going to continue on for another quadrennial to Rio 2016.  By the time Rio rolls around Lochte will be 31 (maybe 32) and carrying with him a medal record of 11 Olympic medals.  Lochte will have a lot to live up to and it will be interesting to see if his body can handle the load that his Gregg Troy program will throw Lochte leading up to Rio.  It won't be easy especially given that Lochte will have many of the distractions that sidetracked Phelps over the last 4 years.  Lochte is going to need to right the ship at some point and get back to being the Ryan Lochte that everyone in the swimming community admires.

Ultimately... Lochte is great for the sport, even if he is not beloved by popular culture.  If he has another 4 years left in him then it's good for the profile of swimming in the sports community.

TOMORROW... Suit Controversy?

The Leaving London Series: The End Of The Comeback Era

Over the last four years leading into the London Olympics, it seemed like an unusually high number of swimmers returned to the sport in search of one last chance at Olympic glory.

Why?  Perhaps it is the trend that successful Olympic swimmers are excelling at an older age then before.  Science and funding is at the root of the success of older swimmers.

Some swimmers launched their comebacks successfully and made it to the London Olympics...

Hungary's Eva Risztov claimed Olympic Gold in the 10km
Open Water after retiring from 2005-2009

Eva Risztov
Anthony Ervin
Brendan Hansen
Tobias Oriwol
Libby Trickett
Laure Manaudou

Other swimmers saw their comebacks fall short of their expectations...

Ian Thorpe
Geoff Huegill
Michael Klim
Janet Evans
Dara Torres
Ed Moses

Although this is nowhere near an exhaustive list, it does give you a sense that a lot of big names came back to give this Olympic cycle a try.  Some of these comeback athletes will even stick and will continue beyond London, like Trickett who has vowed a campaign to making the Australian Olympic Team again in 2016.

There will be swimmers launching comeback campaigns leading into the 2016 Rio Games but I would find it hard to believe that the list could be as compelling as the list of those who made a 2012 run.  Sure... there's a guy who won 22 Olympic medals who would be the beginning and end of compelling comeback stories but beyond that 2012 will stand as the apex of the swimmer Olympic comeback era.

TOMORROW... Ryan Lochte!  Jeah!

The Leaving London Series

After four solid years of anticipation, the Olympic Summer Games in London have come to a close and in the sport of swimming the next four years leading into London will see the greatest change in the sport's recent history.

Michael Phelps is now retired from swimming and after 4 Olympic Games, 3 in which he thoroughly dominated the sport, swimming is ready for change.

So what is next?  Or who is next?

Coming up will be a series of articles outlining either interesting swimmers or interesting trends the are coming out of London.  As always, I have absolutely zero inside information that would lend credibility to what I will write about, but speculation is a long celebrated cornerstone of the Internet and I look forward to applying some interesting narratives to this series of articles.

Enjoy.

The Craziest Thing I Saw At The Olympics

Above is a picture of Germany's Daniela Schreiber who competed at the Olympics in the 100FR and the two freestyle relays.  In the 100FR Schreiber tied for 15th after preliminaries and then was eliminated in the semifinal she tied for 15th again and was eliminated

All these things are fine and well, but what the hell was with the 1960s old school start?

Really?  Was this a joke?  Or does Schreiber know something that the rest of the world doesn't know?

I scoured the Google but my German is not that sharp and there did not appear to be anything in English that covered this unconventional start.

Of course the Canada swimming coverage team of Rod Smith (who did a decent job) and Joanne Malar (who did not) failed to point out this odd start or to follow up as to why?  Where was Superbodies man Dr. Greg Wells to figure out more about this odd start?  I'll tweet him and see if he can figure this out... so odd.

More post-Olympic swimming thoughts to come throughout the week..