Travel to South Korea, Great Britain and USA On This Episode of The Week That Was

Gian Mattia D'Alberto / lapresse 23-08-2014 Berlino sport 32mi Campionati Europei LEN di nuoto nella foto: Adam Peaty GBR Gian Mattia D'Alberto / lapresse 23-08-2014 Berlin 32rd LEN European Swimming In the photo: Radoslaw Kawecki POL

Photo by Gian Mattia Dalberto/Lapresse

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 29. THIS week’s show takes us to South Korea, Great Britain and several locations in the United States. So grab your passports as we get the show started with the number five headline, which took place just a few miles from the Swimming World studios in Mesa.

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Cesar Cielo is back in the United States, training with Scott Goodrich at Mesa Aquatics as he prepares for the short course world championships. Last Saturday, Mesa Aquatics held a Masters meet, and Cielo made his Masters debut, swimming in two events. Though not as fast as he swam earlier this month at a meet in Brazil, the Olympic 50 free gold medalist from 2008 no doubt brought another level of excitement to the meet. Cielo swam a 21.54 to win the 50 free, and was out-touched in the 100 free by another Olympic gold medalist, Darian Townsend, 48.08 to 48.34. Cielo’s 50 free will be logged as a Masters world record for the 25-29 age group, while Townsend scored three records in the 30-34 age group in the 100 free, 100 IM and 200 free.

The number four headline of the week is a sad one, with the news that 1968 Olympian Eadie Wetzel has been dealing the debilitating effects of ALS for about a year. Wetzel had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia but that had changed to full-blown ALS not long after. Last week, her sons Whit and Casey Hansen released a video that celebrated her mother’s life and showed how her mind had begun to deteriorate last year as ALS had taken hold of her. As a fresher, ALS victims experience significant brain and muscle deterioration that eventually leads to death. Wetzel’s family called on her swimming family to send nothing but positive thoughts and prayers to her as she continues to battle this disease at 61 years old, and we at Swimming World are definitely doing that.

Moving on to number three on our countdown of the top stories of the past week, we go to Great Britain where coaches there honored Melanie Marshall as the swim coach of the year. Marshall is the first woman honored by the British Swim Coaches Association, and it’s richly deserved after a year when her longtime pupil Adam Peaty broke the world record in the 50 breaststroke at the European championships and won the 100 breast at the Commonwealth Games. Marshall was an elite swimmer for Great Britain, competing in the 2008 Olympics, but her biggest success came at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, where she won six medals at the meet.

The number two headline of the week is the announcement of the nominees for this year’s Golden Goggle Awards, which will take place in November in New York City. Michael Phelps got the most nominations with five, which is very impressive just a few months into his competitive comeback where he won the 100 fly at the Pan Pacific championships. Katie Ledecky was right behind with four nominations, and we all know how amazing Ledecky was, setting five world records in the course of three months in the distance freestyle events. Fans get to have their say in determining who wins these awards by voting online at usaswimming.org before November 14. The Golden Goggles has become a major affair, reuniting the national team as they get dressed up for one night on the town. This year, the ceremony will be hosted by Matt Lauer and Al Roker of the Today show and will likely be streamed live on USA Swimming’s website. Don’t forget to vote!

And now we have arrived at the number one headline of the week. The Asian Games was the final major international competition of the year, and it turned out to be a battle between Japan and China for the title of supreme nation. It’s a little tough to determine who which country came out on top if you look at the medal standings. China won the most gold medals with 22 to Japan’s 12, but China and Japan tied with the most overall medals at 45. I’ve heard many times that Japan does not put as strong a focus on the Asian Games as the Chinese, given that the Chinese swimmers get prize money for winning medals, while the Japanese do not. That fact always boosts the efforts of the Chinese at the meet, and we tend to find some breakout stars here. That was the case in 2010 with Ye Shiwen and Sun Yang, and that might hold true for such stars as Shen Duo and Ning Zetao, though the next two years will tell the tale. The host country’s hero, Tae Hwan Park, didn’t live up to expectations, taking home just three bronze medals as he admitted to caving in to the pressure of performing for a home crowd. This has to go down as one of the most bizarre editions of the Asian Games in history, with Sun Yang releasing commercials before the meet doing some trash talking to Tae Hwan Park, then Sun caught calling the Japanese national anthem ugly. And then Japanese swimmer Naoya Tomita is facing severe punishment for allegedly stealing a camera from the deck. If you missed any of the action from South Korea, you can go to our world channel at swimmingworld.com and find all of our recaps.

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Jason V

9 years ago

The Asian Games gave us several topics of conversation.