The Morning Swim Show, August 17, 2009: News from Swimming and Diving

PHOENIX, Arizona, August 17. NEWS from swimming, diving and the dance floor highlight today's news segment of The Morning Swim Show.

Host Peter Busch talks about Sean Hutchison's move to California, Natalie Coughlin's upcoming appearance on a popular dancing competition, the top divers at last week's nationals and a Michael Phelps update. Viewers can watch the show in the video player below. The full transcript of the show follows.

We've got a lot of news in the aquatics world to bring to you, so let's get right to it.

Sean Hutchison officially announced today that he has accepted a new position as coach of postgraduate swimmers at the Fullerton Aquatics Swim Team in southern California. The team will be funded by the US Olympic Committee and will be somewhat similar to the teams Dave Marsh and Bob Bowman run, except Hutchison will be responsible for only the postgraduate swimmers. Hutchison was a coach for many years at King Aquatics in Seattle, getting Megan Jendrick and Margaret Hoelzer on the 2008 Olympic team and guiding Ariana Kukors to that amazing 200 IM world record in Rome last month.

Kukors and Hoelzer are the only two swimmers that have been publicly confirmed to join Hutchison in California. Jon Urbanchek will eventually become a part of Hutchison's coaching staff, leaving the University of Michigan after 27 years of coaching the Wolverines.

Jason Marsteller spoke with Hutchison about the move and you can read more about it on our website.

Earlier today on ABC's Good Morning America, Natalie Coughlin was named as one of the 16 celebrities who will appear on the upcoming season of Dancing With the Stars. We understand the 11-time Olympic medalist has been keeping in good shape since the Beijing Olympics, so a few turns around the dance floor shouldn't be much of a problem. Olympic athletes have a good track record on the show. Gymnast Shawn Johnson won last season's contest, figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi won the season before that and speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno won in 2007. The new season starts Sept. 21 on ABC.

Many of america's top divers competed at last week's national championships, where Troy Dumais earned his 28th and 29th national titles in the 1-meter and 3-meter events. Thomas Finchum and Drew Livingston battled it out on the 10-meter platform, with Livingston winning his first national title, just 10 points ahead of Finchum.

Other winners at the diving nationals include such familiar names as Christina Loukas, Chris Colwill and Kelci Bryant. We have recaps of the meet in our diving channel on swimmingworld.com.

Finally, we want to report that Michael Phelps is doing just fine after he was involved in a car wreck last week. Police officers in Baltimore said the accident was the other driver's fault…Phelps was cited for not having a valid license but other than that…he walked away without a scratch.

Speaking of Phelps…we'd like to end today's show by commemorating the greatest achievement in Olympic history. On August 17, 2008, Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal in Beijing, swimming the butterfly leg on the 400 medley relay. The eighth gold was fairly anticlimactic compared to the 100 fly and 400 free relay…but it was the one that officially pushed him past Mark Spitz's record of seven golds in one Olympics, which stood for 36 years.

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