Streamlined News: Competition Wrap-Up; Van der Burgh Home Robbed; Mitcham on Australian Diving Team

PHOENIX, Arizona, May 29. WE'RE back from the Memorial Day holiday here in the United States. Hope you enjoyed your weekend. A lot of swimming took place, not only here in the USA, but also in Canada and Europe. We'll give you the highlights of each meet, and you can go to swimmingworld.com to get completely caught up on the meets you may have missed.

Let's start with the European championships, which wrapped up over the weekend with the return of Milorad Cavic in the 100 butterfly. The Serb won the race in 51.45, which is the fastest in the world right now. This is the first time in three years Cavic has put up a 100 fly that ranks even in the top 10, and makes him someone to watch again in that 100 fly when the Olympics rolls around.

Britta Steffen is on the road to defending her Olympic titles in the 50 and 100 freestyles, winning both in Hungary. And Laszlo Cseh finished the meet with an impressive 4:12.17, sixth-fastest in the world, bringing his total gold medal tally at the European championships to 11 since 2004.

Fred Bousquet won't be swimming the 50 freestyle at the Olympics, but he did win the European title in 21.80, just a hundredth slower than he swam last month in Brazil. Again, this time would have put him on the French Olympic team in the 50 … had he swum that fast at their Trials.

Tae Hwan Park showed off some tremendous versatility this weekend in Vancouver at the Mel Zajac International, finishing second in the 50 and 100 freestyles to Brent Hayden, then won the 200 and 400 freestyles in very impressive times. His 400 free time of 3:44.22 is his fastest of the year and puts him second in the world behind Sun Yang. His 200 free time of 1:46.75 isn't too far off his best of the year as well.

Some members of the Australian Olympic team were in Vancouver as well. Stephanie Rice won both IMs, and Leisel Jones was the queen of the breaststrokes. On the men's side, Hayden Stoeckel is preparing to defend the bronze medal he won in the 100 backstroke in Beijing, and Ryan Napoleon continued to show improvement in the middle distance freestyles.

Further south in Irvine, California, was the Speedo Grand Challenge, where elite swimmers from the Fullerton swim team and Trojan Swim Club put on a show for the crowd. Kate Ziegler was impressive in the distance freestyles, winning the 400 free and placing second to Haley Anderson in the 800. Anderson is using the meet as preparation for the 10K Olympic qualifier in a couple of weeks.

Nick D'Arcy of Australia had a rollercoaster weekend in Irvine. He was poised to win the 100 fly, but missed the final due to illness. He came back the next day to win the 200 fly handily in 1:57.16, setting himself up for more next week in Santa Clara.

At the same meet, Derya Buyukuncu swam the 100 and 200 backstrokes, and has a chance to compete in his sixth Olympic Games for Turkey. He swam under the FINA B standards in both events, which means he'll have to wait to see if his time will get him into the meet, which is being capped at 900 swimmers. Buyukuncu was a former national high school record holder in the 100 backstroke, a record that lasted from 1994 to 1999. He then went on to success at the University of Michigan. Buyukuncu's first Olympics was in 1992 when he was just 16 years old.

Over in Tempe, Arizona, elite swimmers from Tucson and Phoenix highlighted the Arizona Invitational on the campus of Arizona State University. Nick Brunelli, a graduate of ASU, flew in from North Carolina and placed in the top three in the 50 and 100 freestyles. Roland Schoeman won the sprint freestyles, and interestingly, swam faster in the 100 free last weekend than he did at the South African Olympic Trials. Amanda Beard swept the breaststroke events, and Matt Grevers was dominant, as usual, in the 100 back.

Cameron van der Burgh is headed to an Olympic training camp in France this week, with issues back home likely weighing on his mind. The South African was robbed on Friday, and the medals he had won over the years were among the items stolen from his parent's home in broad daylight. Van der Burgh and his family were preparing to celebrate his birthday that day, and they returned to find the house in shambles. So far, there's been no news on the recovery of the stolen items.

Matthew Mitcham will get to defend his 10-meter diving Olympic title in London, after a nerve-wracking couple of weeks in which he was unsure if he would be named to the Australian Olympic team. Mitcham had no problem at the Australian Olympic Trials, but didn't conform to Diving Australia's selection criteria requiring a certain performance at the USA Diving Grand Prix a couple of weeks ago. It appears the rules have been bent in Mitcham's favor. Diving Australia appealed to the International Olympic Committee for Mitcham's inclusion, and yesterday his name was on the list of 10 Australian divers going to London.

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