The Morning Swim Show News Segment, Aug. 4, 2009: Reader Comments on World Championships; Peter Busch’s Appearance on ESPN Show

PHOENIX, Arizona, August 4. VISITORS to SwimmingWorldMagazine.com had a lot to say about the swims at the world championships, and we present some of them on today's news segment of The Morning Swim Show.

Host Peter Busch also presents his appearance on ESPN's "Outside the Lines," in which he discusses the controversy surrounding the high-tech swimsuits, Michael Phelps' performances in Rome and what will the future of the sport be when the suits are gone. Watch the show in the video player below and read the full transcript of today's news segment under the player.

The US Open begins today in Federal Way, Washington. A lot of the top American swimmers that you didn't see at the world championships started competition in this morning's prelim session and we'll have results from the finals session tonight on swimmingworld.com. Today on the show we'll show you a clip from my appearance yesterday on ESPN's outside the lines, but first we're making our viewers and readers a big part of today's show.

Many of the visitors to our website are still talking about it as well and posting their comments using our Reaction Time feature.

The most talked about race was the men's 200 free, in which Paul Biedermann stunned Michael Phelps.

Here are some of the comments you wrote after that race:

Username MJH wrote, "If the suits were handicapped as horses are in racing, then Michael swam 1:41.22 (handicapped). He should get the gold medal."

Likac05 said, "This is a sad day for swimming. That's all I can say. That man would never ever beat Phelps without the x-glide. Kudos to Phelps, he did an amazing race. He's still No 1."

And scotswim wrote, "Just a small note in defense of Paul. I notice that he swam at Europeans and Olympics without a cap and in this race he wore one.
One additional reason he would have swum a bit faster."

That 100 fly race didn't bring quite as many comments, but still very heated discussion, especially after Cavic broke the world record in the semifinals.

Max argie wrote, "Phelps is no match for Cavic. Cavic is gonna break 50 and Phelps will have to go below 23.4 to have a chance."

Max…you were right and wrong…Phelps' first half split was 23.36 so you were right he needed to go out that fast…but obviously wrong that Phelps was no match. You and I both errored in that prediction.

Interestingly enough, the story that had the most comments after the men's 200 free was the women's 800 free relay, in which China outlasted the Americans for the gold medal. Swimming fans will remember that the 1994 worlds in Rome featured female Chinese swimmers who were later found to be using performance enhancing drugs, so the question on steroids appearing again in 2009 was raised.

Fat Drew was one of many who came to the Chinese defense, saying "The Chinese beat the Americans in Beijing last year as well, with three of the four girls they used today…it's not 1994 anymore, and these girls didn't come out of nowhere to form this winning team, they've been on the international scene for many years."

If you've got something to say about world championships, you can post it on our website's Reaction time. Just click on a story and post your comments. You can also send us an email at mail@morningswimshow.com.

Thanks to great storylines like Michael Phelps and the swimsuit controvery, swimming is mainstream in a non-Olympic year, with news articles and TV reports focusing on the sport in a way that's usually seen only during the Olympic Games.

On Monday, I was a guest on ESPN's Outside the Lines, in which I talked with host John Anderson, and espn.com columnist Pat Forde…about the world championships. Here's the segment.

(Outside the Lines)

Our thanks to ESPN for allowing us to bring that to you today. That's our news segment today. We'll be back tomorrow with results from the first day at the US Open.

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