Streamlined News

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 19. LET’S get you caught up on the news from the past weekend.

Ryan Lochte, not too surprisingly, was honored as the top American swimmer at the United States Aquatic Sports Convention on Friday. Lochte won five gold medals at the world championships, and set the first long course world record since December 2009 in the 200 IM with a 1:54.00. That swim was honored with the ConocoPhillips Performance Award. The Crippen family received the Athletes’ Appreciation Award for their work in improving open water swimming in the months since Fran Crippen’s death, and Maddy Crippen was given the Glen S. Hummer award for her contributions to open water swimming. The longtime coach of the Crippen siblings, Dick Shoulberg, won the highest honor in American swimming, the USA Swimming Award.

Ashley Twichell and Alex Meyer, both of whom were very recently on “The Morning Swim Show,” were named female and male open water swimmers of the year. Mallory Weggemann and Marcus Titus received the awards for male and female disability swimmers of the year. Weggemann is still riding the wave of those nine world records she set at last year’s IPC world championships, and Titus recently won multiple gold medals at the Deaf World Games and will swim the 100 breast at the Pan-American Games.

Besides Shoulberg, three other coaches were recognized at the ceremony. Gregg Troy was again recognized as the ASCA coach of the year, and Mallory Weggemann’s coach Jim Andersen was honored as the Jimi Flowers Disability coach of the year. Brian Brown of the Hydro Swim Team won the Developmental Coach of the Year honor for placing three swimmers on the national junior team.

In more open water news, USA Swimming’s house of delegates voted on a new maximum water temperature for open water races at 85 degrees Fahrenheit, or 29.45 degrees Celsius. That is much cooler than FINA’s current standard of 87.8 degrees Fahrenheit, or 31 degrees Celsius. This mandate will apply to all USA Swimming-run open water races of 5K or longer.

The British swimming team also honored its top swimmers and coaches. Rebecca Adlington, the world champion in the 800 free, got the female swimmer of the year award, and James Goddard won male swimmer of the year for finishing fourth in the 200 IM in Shanghai. Goddard’s coach, Sean Kelly, who also coaches open water swimmer of the year Kerri-Anne Payne, won the first-ever lifetime achievement award. In addition to guiding Payne to a silver in the 10K in the 2008 Olympics and Cassandra Patten to bronze in the same event, the 46-year-old Kelly coached Stephen Parry to a bronze medal in the 200 fly at the 2004 Olympics and Graeme Smith to a bronze in the 1500 in 1996.

On a beautiful sunny morning yesterday in the San Francisco Bay, Kane Radford and Melissa Gorman reclaimed the titles of fastest male and female at the RCP Tiburon Mile. Both had won in 2009, and each of them claimed $10,000 for winning. Radford will be looking to make the field for the Olympic 10K race next year, while Gorman is already part of the Olympic lineup, by virtue of her fourth place finish in the world championship 10K race. You can watch our Race Day show featuring interviews with Radford and Gorman on our Tiburon Mile landing page at swimmingworld.tv.

Watch today’s episode of Streamlined News.

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