By John Lohn
BEIJING, China, August 14. THE sitting around has finally ended for Ian Crocker. The world-record holder in the 100 butterfly went from spectator status to athlete Thursday night as he got his Olympic program rolling with the preliminaries of his pet event. Crocker is one of the remaining obstacles between Michael Phelps and his quest for eight gold medals.
Opting for a jammer instead of the full-length legs, Crocker moved through his race in 51.95, good for the 13th seed heading into the semifinals. Crocker was the silver medalist in the event at the Athens Games and the world champion in 2003 and 2005. He took silver at the 2007 World Champs and his world-record time sits at 50.40.
The final heat of the prelims produced the top three times, with Serbia's Milorad Cavic leading the way in 50.76, good for an Olympic record. Cavic rocketed to the front at the start and held off Michael Phelps at the wall, not that Phelps was wasting too much gas. The defending champion, despite cruising, touched in 50.87, not far off his personal best.
The Ukraine's Andriy Serdinov, the bronze medalist in Athens, was third in the heat and overall as he generated a time of 51.10, slightly quicker than the 51.14 that Kenya's Jason Dunford used to win his heat and set an Olympic record that had a short shelf life. Slovenia's Peter Mankoc was timed in 51.24 and Australia's Andrew Lauterstein was next in 51.37. Japan's Takuro Fujii followed in 51.50.
The rest of the semifinal field will include Venezuela's Albert Subirats (51.71), New Zealand's Corney Swanepoel (51.78), Ukrainian Sergiy Breus (51.82), France's Fred Bousquet (51.83), China's Shi Feng (51.87), Papa New Guinea's Ryan Pini (52.00), South Africa's Lyndon Ferns (52.04) and Brazil's Kaio Almeida (52.05).
Results: 2008 Olympic Games - Swimming
Premium Members - Search More About: Milorad Cavic
Reaction Time Comments
August 14, 2008 Good swim by Phelps early. He was so relaxed the first 50 and so strong the second. He will be out .6 faster in the final. Cavic normally leaves his best swim(s) out there in earlier heats. He might go 50.6 before it is all over, but I doubt it. Phelps should be 50.2 or better. Crocker head is not in the sport anymore. Submitted by: crafto
August 14, 2008 When you look at best times turned in so far (as compared to top US) by Andrew Lauterstein's improvement in the fly leg (-.5 to Phelps), RICKARD Brenton in breast (-.2 to Hansen), and Hayden Stoeckel in back (-.4 to Piersol), with Emon Sullivan ( .7) at anchor, the Aussies have a pretty strong medley relay; the US can't take this one for granted; Piersol and Phelps seem to have brought their A game, Hansen is somewhat off, can Lezak repeat his other relay swim? If not, the US has a tough match, and relay starts will be key - given Crocker's swims at trials and prelims, there seems no way the US can risk him in the fly leg in the final).
I think regardless of the 100 fly final, the US should plan on Crocker in the prelims, Phelps in the final (consistently 50 not 51); and I'd trust that this gives a lead to Lezak which enables him to hold off Sullivan.
But htis won't be the shoo-in win it has been in the past. Submitted by: Vaswimfan
August 14, 2008 OK, anyone else not going to be surprised now if the Aussie men push the U.S Medley relay hard now? They are right there. Phelps quest, if he wins this event, could be dashed by a hard charging Aussie crew who now has a legitimate threat. The backstrokers are within .4 tenths of each other. Hansen is not on his "A" game and Rickard can beat him right now...even at the half. Now this Aussie flyer has gone 51.3 in prelims versus whoever wins between Phelps and Crocker (but may go faster?) and then they will have Sullivan anchoring, who will be 46 again, with Lezak maybe needing to have another big race, rather than the ho-hum Lezak we saw in the 100, otherwise it may be Sullivan doing the hunting down and passing.
And you know the Aussies are not going to wait on 'safe starts' to ensure 8 gold medals on a DQ. They are going to fly on those takeovers.....damn the torpedoes and go for it.
They are looking like a dark horse the U.S. may really need to look out for.
Submitted by: rcoach
August 14, 2008 Geez, Vaswifan...we must have been channeling each other or something when we were writing these.
Submitted by: rcoach
August 14, 2008 I think you gotta give Phelps a full second on Lauterstein. I don't think Andrew can go much faster than 51.2 whereas with Phelps' meet a 50.3 isn't out of the question. Putting the breaststrokers even, I think Lezak will have solidly an over second lead over Sullivan. And he won't be stupid enough to swim on the wrong side of the lane either. I think it'll be close, but I'm predicting USA by maybe 0.5 over Australia.
Definitely not the blowout that was Athens. Submitted by: Sphere
August 14, 2008 I agree Sphere....but that's a whole lot closer than the U.S. probably thought they were going to have to deal with 3-4 weeks ago.
I will see your 0.5 and raise you another 0.5. U.S. wins by 1.0...Peirsol is a big race swimmer and will be the difference right out of the gate. Here are my split predictions (US first/AUS second)-- 52.2/52.8//59.6/59.3//49.9/50.8//46.4/46.2
3:28.10 to 3:29.10. Lezak will have to come through again I think. Submitted by: rcoach
August 14, 2008 I agree with rcoach; I was gonna say US by one second. Submitted by: liquidassets
August 14, 2008 I would hope hansen goes faster than his individual time he went in the finals of the 100 breast where he went 59.5. I say Hansen will be up for this cause he wont have all the pressure on him so he will be able to swim well, say 59.1 or 59.0. Hopefully he has been trying to work on his pull outs. Plus Eamon only beat Lezak by .4 last night so the U.S. will win this unless something terrible happens. The Aussies would have to swim out of their minds and the US swim pretty poorly for the Aussies to win. Submitted by: WUswimmer
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