Click here for the latest Swimming World coverage of the U.S. National Championships, including on-the-spot interviews!
INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, July 7. WHILE Chloe Sutton of Mission Viejo pushed the early pace, leading through the bulk of the women's 400 free, Club Wolverine's Allison Schmitt overcame the deficit to top the middle distance event.
Schmitt barreled down the final 100 meters to clinch the national title and a spot on the World Championships team with a 4:06.77. She finished third in the event last year at the U.S. Olympic Trials, and obviously used that as fuel to earn top finish. Her time, however, wound up outside the top 10 in the world this year with China's Chen Qian holding the 10th-best effort with a 4:06.69.
"It feels amazing, I am just really happy," Schmitt said.
Sutton, who surprisingly did not make the open water team for Worlds after making the Olympics last year in the 10K, went out fast and held on for second with a time of 4:07.20. That swim crushed her personal best of 4:08.94, and likely put her on the World Championships team in the pool depending on how the rest of team qualifying plays out the rest of the week.
Gator's Carolina Burckle finished third in 4:09.61, while North Baltimore's Katie Hoff finished a surprising sixth in 4:12.34. Hoff holds the American record with a 4:02.20 set last year, but has been battling an illness since altitude training in Colorado Springs earlier this summer.
Results
SwimmingWorld.TV Interviews
Search For More News About: Allison Schmitt
Reaction Time Comments
Reaction Time responses do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions
of Swimming World Magazine or SwimmingWorldMagazine.com.
Reaction Time is provided as a service to our readers.
July 7, 2009 Happy for Sutton since she missed out on the Open water team; but she and Schmitt are way off medal contention at this point. It looks like Hoff could be sick??? vs. maybe missed the taper; hopefully the latter and she can challenge in her later events... Submitted by: liquidassets
July 7, 2009 Congrats to Smit who missed getting an individual Olympic event last year. Very impressive breaststroke; she even outsplit Leverenz. Pelton had a nice drop from Jr. Worlds, but given how much she died on the last 50, it was more that Kukors, Knutson, and Beisel failed to capitalize:
Kukors got a little too far behind on fly and failed to capitalize on her superior breaststroke, Knutson didn't catch up in freestyle as expected, and Beisel was dead last after the fly and never got into contention despite her usual strengths in all 3 remaining strokes, particularly backstroke where Pelton still outsplit her by a second. Given how close the outcome was, I'm interested in learning what suits the finalists were wearing, especially Pelton, Kukors, and Knutson. Submitted by: liquidassets
July 8, 2009 According to the TV and some newspaper reports (e.g., Washington Post), it seems that many elite swimmers have caught the swine flu. The number seems to be out of proportion to the number of Americans who have caught the swine flu. What could possibly be the reason? Submitted by: munatones
July 8, 2009 According to the TV and some newspaper reports (e.g., Washington Post), it seems that many elite swimmers have caught the swine flu. The number seems to be out of proportion to the number of Americans who have caught the swine flu. What could possibly be the reason? Submitted by: munatones
July 8, 2009 Well, that's not completely surprising; it's a virus. One of the dirty little secrets about swimming is that swimmers have higher rates of viral and bacterial infections than the general population (as well as fungal infections, skin disorders,allergies ) due to their close proximity both to each other and moist environments where the bugs thrive. Submitted by: liquidassets
Reaction Time responses do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions
of Swimming World Magazine or SwimmingWorldMagazine.com.
Reaction Time is provided as a service to our readers.
|
.jpg)
Photo By: Peter H. Bick
Subscribe Now!
|
