Streamlined News

PHOENIX, Arizona, October 28. JAMES Magnussen will race this weekend in Sydney, Australia, his first competition since winning the 100 free at the world championships.

Magnussen is racing the 100 and 200 freestyles in the short course meters meet and goes into this weekend with the world’s fastest 100 with a 46.82 from a meet he swam in just before the world championships. He’s currently sixth in the world in the 200 free short course, and has hinted that the 200 freestyle might be on his Olympic schedule.

Austrian swimmer Dinko Jukic was cleared of any wrongdoing in refusing to take an out-of-competition drug test in May. Jukic refused to have blood drawn when testing officials came to the pool where he trains on May 24, saying the conditions were not hygienic. Refusing a drug test, according to international drug rules, is similar to a positive drug test. While officials conducted an investigation into the matter, Jukic was allowed to swim at the world championships, where he placed seventh in the 200 fly, and was earning money this month at the FINA World Cup meets.

College swimming takes the spotlight this weekend with a couple of very interesting meets taking place. Florida and Georgia will race a long course meters dual meet this weekend in Gainesville. The Georgia women’s team is looking good this season, but will be without star freestyler Allison Schmitt, who is taking a redshirt year to train in Baltimore for the Olympics. Florida, of course, is led by Elizabeth Beisel and Teresa Crippen on the women’s side and Sebastien Rousseau and Marcin Cieslak on the men’s side. With the graduation of Mark Dylla and Bill Cregar, the Bulldogs will be looking to world champion open water swimmer Andrew Gemmell for leadership.

The Texas men’s team will start their competition season at the Mansfield Invite this weekend. The Longhorns have reigning NCAA champ Eric Friedland and All-Americans Jimmy Feigen and Dax Hill leading the squad to a possible NCAA team title.

The University of Tennessee’s women’s team raced last night against conference rival Louisville, with World University Games champion Jenny Connolly winning both backstroke events and Lindsay Gendron pulling off a tough double, winning the 1000 and 200 freestyles.

Down south at the Pan American Games, the United States is gearing up for what could be two dominating performances in the water polo gold medal matches, both of which will be against Canada. The women will face off against our neighbors to the north today, while the men will play on Saturday. If they win, both teams will automatically win a spot on the roster for the Olympics.

In the diving venue at Pan Ams, Mexico has won all four of the gold medals offered so far. In the opening event on Wednesday, Yahel Castillo and Julian Sanchez won the men’s synchro three-meter, with Americans Troy Dumais and Kristian Ipsen 45 points behind. Castillo returned to win the individual three-meter event yesterday, 48 points ahead of Sanchez. Mexico also went 1-2 in the women’s platform final, with Paola Espinosa winning by 1.5 points over Tatiana Ortiz. Espinosa and Ortiz teamed up for the synchro platform event, winning gold by seven points over Canada’s Meaghan Benfeito and Roseline Filion. Cassidy Krug offered some hope for the United States, qualifying first in the women’s three-meter springboard prelims this morning. Paola Espinosa will also be in that final, looking for gold medal number three.

Ryan Lochte visited Barcelona last weekend for sponsor obligations and offered his support of the venue for the 2013 world championships. Lochte has said many times that he has not intentions of retiring after London, and could see himself competing at the 2016 Games. An article on the FINA website also noted that Liam Tancock, Eamon Sullivan and Paul Biedermann will be visiting the Spanish capital in the coming days and will likely visit the pool, which was the venue for the 1992 Olympic Games.

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