USA vs. Europe: A More Fitting Dual Meet

Guest editorial by John Craig

PHOENIX, Arizona, July 3. EVIDENTLY there are talks being held about the possibility of a USA vs. Europe dual meet in the near future. The U.S. had previously taken on Australia, a misguided idea since discontinued. The U.S. has 290 million people, Australia only 17 million, and the meet had too much of a David vs. Goliath feel to it.

Australia has more recently taken on Japan, a more fitting opponent for them. That turned out to be a good meet, even if the Japanese seemed a little better rested for it. Looking at last year's Olympic results, USA – Europe would provide a similarly close matchup.

If the 2008 Beijing Olympics had been scored as a dual meet between the USA and Europe, using a simple 5-3-1 scoring system, the outcome would have been a 64–53 victory for the U.S. men, a 60-57 victory for the European women, and a 121–113 combined victory for the U.S.

Sometimes the third place "scorer" in this theoretical dual meet was the Olympic bronze medalist, and sometimes it was the eighth-place finalist; but only swimmers from the U.S. and Europe were counted. Also, this scoring doesn't count any of the relays from Beijing, since those – with the possible exception of the French men's 400 free relay — would obviously be reconstituted for a European team.

It's a safe assumption that since everybody put their best foot forward in Beijing, this outcome reflects the best of both "teams."

The Europeans have been swimming awfully well this year, while the Americans have been a bit more static (although U.S. nationals will undoubtedly have some surprises). So at the moment it looks as though if you were to score the upcoming World Championships in Rome in similar fashion, Europe would win both the men's and women's meets.

The U.S. has a number of top swimmers like Brendan Hansen, Larsen Jensen, and Jason Lezak, who do not plan on competing at the World Championships. Michael Phelps is experimenting with new events in which he is not as dominant.

The U.S. women have some up-and-coming stars who may make an impact, most notably Dagny Knutson. We also have some even younger swimmers like Liz Pelton who are on the verge of stardom. But Dutch, British, Italian, and German women have already set world records this year. And, if the U.S. team is restricted to wearing LZRs, that will put them at further disadvantage to a group of Europeans who will be wearing 100 percent non-textile suits. So the balance of power will probably shift.

Either way, such a dual meet would be a much closer competition than U.S. – Australia was. One benefit of a dual meet is that it gives the #3 and #4 U.S. swimmers a chance to swim in international competition, which they might not otherwise get.

Despite the existence of the European Union, it's not clear that there is enough European sentiment to get nationalists fired up about such a "dual" meet. But such a meet would be a big event in the swimming community, and that would be enough to get the individual swimmers fired up, which would make for some exciting competition.

Given the European population of approximately 730 million, and more to the point, how well they've been swimming recently, it'll be our turn to play David vs. the opponent's Goliath.

Read John Craig's essay "The Toughest Guy I Ever Met" is at justnotsaid.blogspot.com.

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