Streamlined News, May 11, 2012: Dale Oen’s Funeral; Pursley to Coach at ‘Bama; Fast Swimming in Germany, California, North Carolina


PHOENIX, Arizona, May 11. ALEXANDER Dale Oen's funeral took place today near his hometown in Norway. The two-hour service was attended by 300 friends and family in Oygarden and was broadcast live on Norwegian television and on the Internet, with Dale Oen's favorite band, Tr?ndelag DDE, performing a few songs. Dale Oen was then laid to rest in a cemetery not too far from the church. The cause of Dale Oen's sudden death while attending a training camp in Flagstaff, Arizona, still is being determined, but medical personnel have claimed that there was no trauma to the heart.

Dennis Pursley will be the head coach of the men's and women's swim teams at Alabama, shortly after finishing his duties as national head coach for Great Britain at the Olympics. Pursley is an Alabama graduate, earning his undergraduate and Master's degrees in Tuscaloosa, but this will be his first head coaching job in the collegiate ranks. He's most known for his club coaching duties in the Ohio-Kentucky area, as well as here in Phoenix. He was also the first national team director for USA Swimming, holding that job from 1989 to 2003.

After a relatively uneventful first day at the German Olympic Trials, today's competition kicked things into higher gear. Paul Biedermann won the 200 free in 1:46.70, which is seventh-fastest in the world. But the bigger story was what happened in the battle for second. Clemens Rapp touched second in 1:47.57, which was fast enough to qualify for the Olympics. In third place was Dimitri Colupaev, who many will know as a junior from the University of Southern California. Colupaev was one hundredth of a second behind Rapp to miss out on Olympic qualifying — but there is a silver lining. Colupaev is on the roster for the European championships in a couple of weeks, and if he can swim faster than Rapp's 1:47.57 at that meet, he'll be able to swim the 200 free in London. At the very least, these three will provide some momentum for the Germans in that 800 freestyle relay.

Marco Koch took down world championship bronze medalist Christian von Lehm in Berlin today with a 2:09.48 to von Lehm's 2:10.07. This gives the Germans two swimmers in the top 10 in the event so far this year.

You can read more about today's competition in Germany on swimmingworld.com.

Australia will be the host of the 2014 Pan Pacific championships, bringing the meet back Down Under for the first time since 1999. Though Brazil, the host of the 2016 Olympics, competes in the Pan Pacific meet, it is likely that the hosts of the meet can only be chosen from the four charter nations: Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States. The meet will be held in August, with the venue yet to be determined.

California is in the middle of its high school championship season. California has sectional championships instead of one state meet, and some of those sectional meets are taking place this weekend. We'll be bringing you recaps from those meets on our high school channel at swimmingworld.com.

The Charlotte UltraSwim Grand Prix began yesterday afternoon with the non-Olympic distance freestyle events. Chloe Sutton won the mile in a 16:23.96 over teammate Ashley Twichell, who's preparing for the 10K Olympic qualifier in about a month. Chad La Tourette won the 800 in 7:59.31 to give Mission Viejo a sweep of the first two events. Tonight's finals will feature a couple of great duels. Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps will race in the 200 freestyle, the event they went 1-2 in at world championships, and teammates Jessica Hardy and Rebecca Soni will do battle in the 100 breast. The finals begin today at 6 p.m. Eastern, and we'll have a recap of the session on swimmingworld.com.

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