Streamlined News: April 20, 2012

PHOENIX, Arizona, April 20. YESTERDAY, Swimming World got confirmation from Georgia head coach Jack Bauerle that one of his longtime assistants, Carol Capitani, will become the new head coach of the women's swim team at Texas. Capitani has been at Georgia for 10 years, where she helped the Lady Bulldogs win two national championships and a slew of runner-up finishes. Capitani competed for UC-Berkeley in the late 1980s and early 1990s and also previously coached at Villanova. Capitani is replacing Kim Brackin, who was let go a couple of weeks ago.

Moving on to results from the Russian nationals, and today was a great day for Mother Russia. Anastasia Zueva posted another top time in the world, today in the non-Olympic 50 backstroke. Her time of 27.54 bumps Rachel Bootsma's 27.84 that she swam at the NCSA junior nationals down to second. In the men's 50 free final, Andrey Grechin won with a 21.82, which is second-fastest in the world right now behind James Magnussen, and a few hundredths ahead of Cesar Cielo. That may change next week, as Cielo is set to race at the Maria Lenk Trophy meet, and he usually puts up some fast times there each year. Vlad Morozov just missed getting on the Olympic team in the 50, placing third to Sergey Fesikov by one hundredth of a second.

The South Africans have their four swimmers set for the men's 400 free relay in London, though the times in today's 100 freestyle final were slower than expected. Gideon Louw swam a 48.74 yesterday in semis, but came back today to win in 49.23. Roland Schoeman was second in 49.25, while Darian Townsend and Graeme Moore rounded out the top four. South Africa was within reach of a medal in the relay at world championships until the third leg, with Moore, Townsend and Louw all posting much faster times last summer than they did today.

Chad Le Clos added the 200 IM to his Olympic schedule with a 1:58.87 in today's semis. But Le Clos should keep an eye on two others who could be faster tomorrow. Darian Townsend and Sebastien Rousseau have not gone 1:58 recently, but both are looking to get an individual swim in London, and will be ready to race tomorrow.

The Fran Crippen Memorial Swim Meet of Champions started last night in Mission Viejo, California, with distance events, and as expected, Mission Viejo won both events. Chloe Sutton won the women's 800 with an 8:26.68, which is now fifth in the world rankings. Janet Evans placed sixth in the 800 final with an 8:46.89, faster than she swam in January at the Austin Grand Prix.

Chad La Tourette, who just three weeks ago broke the American record in the 1650-yard freestyle, won the 1500 free with a 15:09.55, which is the second-fastest time swum by an American this year.

The meet is scheduled to feature a lot of top names from California, and today in prelims we saw some of the best. Jessica Hardy, Liv Jensen, Caitlin Leverenz, Rebecca Soni and Jasmine Tosky, are a few of the top names to keep an eye on in the women's races. Nathan Adrian, Tyler Clary, Anthony Ervin, Eric Shanteau and Tom Shields will be some of the headliners on the men's side. We'll bring you coverage of finals each night on swimmingworld.com.

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