The Morning Swim Show News, August 10, 2009: Jack Brown on Getting 200 IM Finalists to Wear Briefs at US Open; Breaking Down 15 World Records Set in Five Days

PHOENIX, Arizona, August 10. FIFTEEN world records in five days and the ringleader behind a surprising 200 IM in Washington state highlight today's news segment on The Morning Swim Show.

Host Peter Busch runs down all the world records set over the weekend, from Jessica Hardy's new sprint breaststroke standards to the short course marks set in South Africa, Great Britain and Australia by some of the top swimmers from the world championships. Busch also has a conversation with Jack Brown, who convinced the other seven swimmers in the final of the 200 IM at the US Open to swim only in briefs. Watch the entire show in the video player below. The transcript of the show follows.

Let's start at the US Open where Jessica Hardy returned to the sport in a big way. This was her first meet since her year long ban for testing positive for a banned substance at last year's Olympic Trials. On Thursday Hardy broke the world record in the 50 long course meters breaststroke with a 29.95 as part of a 100 breast time trial. Then on Friday she reset her 50 breast world record on the way to setting a new world record in the 100 breast. Her 50 split was a 29.80 and the time for the 100 was 1:04.45. That's a half second under Rebecca Soni's swim from the world championships two weeks ago.

For good measure, Hardy won the 50 free with a 24.90, a time that would have placed fourth at the USA world championship trials. We are working to get Hardy on the show this week so stay tuned.

Nick Thoman chased Aaron Peirsol's world record in the 100 back, swimming a 52.51 to win the event easily. That time made him the sixth fastest swimmer ever in the event.

At the world championships, Michael Cavic proposed that all eight finalists in the 100 fly wear briefs, but no one took him up on the offer. Well on Saturday night at the US Open, the eight men in the final of the 200 IM agreed to swim the race wearing briefs after racing in the high-tech suits for prelims. During the introductions, the swimmers took off their warmups and revealed the briefs to the crowd, who reacted with a lengthy standing ovation. The times in the final were about one and a half seconds slower than the prelim swims. The winner of the B final, Scott Weitz, wore a high-tech suit and swam the fastest 200 IM of the night with a 2:01.53, just a fingernail faster than Jack Brown's time of 2:01.56, which won the A final…if that isn't proof that the hi-tech suits help than I don't know what is. So this has become one of the talked about stories out of the U.S. open…

And we worked our magic here at the morning swim show to get a hold of the mastermind of this memorable moment….joining us on skype right now from Atlanta is Jack Brown…

In other news today…swimmers from Canada, Great Britain, South Africa and Australia were responsible for 12 short course world records over the weekend at three competitions. Five of those records fell at the British Short Course Grand Prix in Leeds. Annamay Pierse of Canada reset her 200 breast world record with a 2:16.83 to go along with the long course record she set two weeks ago. Canada also set three relay records: the men's 800 free relay team of Colin Russell, Stefan Hirniak, Brent Hayden and Joel Greenshields swam a 6:51.05; the women's 400 medley team of Katy Murdoch, Annamay Pierse, Audrey Lacroix and Victoria Poon swam a 3:49.95 and the men's 400 medley team of Jake Tapp, Paul Kornfeld, Joe Bartoch and Brent Hayden went 3:23.33.

Great Britain claimed a world record at the British Grand Prix with Joanne Jackson's 400 free time of 3:54.92.

Cameron van der Burgh set three world records at the South African short course nationals, two of them in one day. First, he reset his 50 breast record with a 25.43 then came back in the semifinals of the 100 breast and swam to a new world record of 56.39. Van der Burgh returned the next day to swim under 56 seconds in the final with a 55.99. He also has the 50 breast long course meters world record. We believe van der Burgh is the second person to set three world records in 24 hours. Michael Phelps has done it on numerous occasions at the world championships and most recently at the 2008 Olympics, where he set world records in the 200 free, 200 fly and 800 free relay within 24 hours.

On the same day van der Burgh was setting his two world records, Roland Schoeman reclaimed the 50 freestyle world mark with a 20.30. Schoeman had the world record of 20.64 from September 2008 until Amaury Leveaux took it away in December with a 20.48.

And yesterday in Australia, the Telstra short course Grand Prix featured three world records. Libby Trickett lowered her world record in the 100 free with a 51.01, and commented after the race that she hadn't swum much since the world championships ended.

Christian Sprenger surprised the world with a world record in the 200 breast at the world championships, and he followed it up with a world record in the short course version. Sprenger's time of 2:01.98 wiped out the last short course world record held by Ed Moses, whose time of 2:02.92 from 2004 had seemed almost unreachable at the time…of course a lot of those types of world records have fallen lately.

Emily Seebohm chased down Natalie Coughlin's eight-year-old world record in the 100 IM and set a new mark with a 58.54.

There were also lots of Masters world records to fall at the US Masters long course nationals last week in Indianapolis. We'd tell you how many but they were happening so fast we lost count of them halfway through the meet. The racing concludes today with the 800 and 1500 freestyles and we'll have a full list of the new records on our website, swimmingworld.com.

And you can also check our website for more on the big meets that took place over the weekend, including the next stage of the USA Swimming sectionals.

We'll end our show today with the sad news of the passing of Hall of Fame coach and swimmer Ron Johnson. Johnson was a frequent guest on our show, most recently on two segments talking about freestyle swimming technique. He coached the Arizona State women to two NCAA titles, helped 14 swimmers win Olympic medals, and went on to become an accomplished Masters coach and swimmer, setting multiple world records in breaststroke and butterfly. Swimming World sends its thoughts and prayers to the family of Ron Johnson. And on that somber note…we'll say goodbye today.

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