Photo by Maddy Olson<\/p>\n
PHOENIX – College dual meets were the big topic of the weekend, and the USA Swimming Grand Prix gave postgrads their first racing opportunities of the fall. Let\u2019s get started at the Grand Prix, where we got to see college postgrads racing for the first time this season.<\/p>\n
The Arena Grand Prix doubled the amount of prize money offered to professional swimmers starting last weekend in Minneapolis, and it brought some of the best in the sport as they not only earned a lot of money but made a play for the ultimate prize: A one-year lease on a BMW. Caitlin Leverenz and Conor Dwyer each won a one-year lease for accumulating the most points in last season\u2019s Grand Prix series, and they are going to have to work hard if they want to get another year. Elizabeth Beisel swam a lot of events last weekend to lead the women\u2019s race by nine points over Leverenz, while Tyler Clary holds a six-point lead over Nathan Adrian. This is only the first of six meets in the Arena Grand Prix series, and anything can happen. Leverenz has publicly said she wants to keep her BMW, but Megan Romano also has her eyes on it, and Beisel is certainly going to put up a lot of wins to make it interesting. Clary is also very good in multiple events, something that will help him as he continues through this circuit. It\u2019s going to be fun to see how this all plays out by the time the final race of the series is swum in Santa Clara.<\/p>\n
On to number four on the show, and we head to Australia with the announcement that two-time 100 free world champion James Magnussen has chosen Mitch and Lach Falvey as his coaches on his journey to the Rio Olympics. The news came as a bit of a shock not only to swimming fans, but to the Australian swimming federation. Many, including national head coach Jacco Verhaeren, had tried to convince Magnussen to move to a location that had been proven to work well for athletes of his caliber after he parted ways with longtime coach Brant Best. But Magnussen turned to the Falvey brothers, two coaches who have had no experience coaching anyone near as talented as Magnussen, but apparently appealed to Magnussen since all three are close to the same age. Swimming Australia publicly denounced Magnussen\u2019s decision but also said the federation will support him financially leading up to the Rio Olympics. We\u2019ll see in the coming months how this plays out as Magnussen returns to competition, but the first big test will be the world championships in August.<\/p>\n
Our number three swimming headline of the week is the report that the International Olympic Committee is considering moving the finals of the swimming competition in Rio de Janeiro to 10 p.m. That\u2019s about three hours later than normal, but it\u2019s a proposal the IOC is looking at after a recommendation by American television broadcaster NBC. Similar to what the network did for the Beijing Olympics in getting finals swum in the morning, NBC is trying to get swimming finals \u2013 and only the swimming finals \u2013 aired live in the USA from Brazil. A 10 p.m. start would be 9 p.m. on the East Coast, 6 p.m. on the West Coast. Understand that this is not official, and no one is detailing how much of a chance this late start has of being approved, but it has drawn some criticism. Australian Olympic champion Libby Trickett was one of the first to speak out against it, calling the move \u201ccrazy.\u201d The Australian Olympic Committee echoed Trickett\u2019s comments. USA Swimming national team head coach Frank Busch took the measured approach, saying the athletes who represent Team USA in Rio \u201cwill be ready to perform at our highest level and carry on our tradition of incredible Olympic success.\u201d Again, this start time is very preliminary, and we\u2019ll see what develops as the organizers of the Rio Olympics get closer to finalizing race schedules.<\/p>\n
Most athletes have a hard time adjusting to college life in the first few months of their freshman year, but that does not appear to be happening for Simone Manuel. About two months after arriving at Stanford University, she\u2019s already swimming lifetime bests. That was highlighted by our number two headline this week, an American record in the 100-yard freestyle at the Art Adamson Invitational at Texas A&M University. She broke her own American record of 46.75 with a 46.62, setting herself up as the one to beat next spring at the NCAA championships. Manuel was out slower than record pace by about seven hundredths of a second with a 22.50, with a 24.12 on her final 50 getting her under the record. That is an amazing split differential for Manuel when you consider that most people have a two-second differential between their first 50 and second 50. Before that amazing swim, Manuel swam a 21.59 in the 50 free on the first day of the meet and 1:42.03 in the 200 free on day two. Manuel has come into her own this year, from winning at nationals this summer to representing Team USA in multiple events at the Pan Pacific championships. This weekend only proved our consensus that she is one of the brightest young stars for Team USA.<\/p>\n
And we\u2019ve arrived at our number one headline of the week, and it\u2019s the revelation that Sun Yang, the world record holder in the men\u2019s 1500 freestyle, tested positive for a banned substance back in May and served a three-month suspension. So why are we just learning about it now? Because China did not feel the need to report the suspension to FINA until now, which they do on a quarterly basis. The drug Sun took was trimetazidine, which is a banned stimulant. Sun was able to prove that he did not intend to take the substance, which was part of medication he was taking at the time. The ban ended on August 16, just in time for Sun to compete at the Asian Games. The only consequence of Sun\u2019s positive test was losing his 1500 freestyle national title from the May nationals, the race which caused the drug test that eventually came up positive. Those who have been in the sport for a while remember China\u2019s history with doping, going back to the 1994 world championships, and the talk surrounding Ye Shiwen at the London Olympics. With that kind of history, and with China\u2019s notorious secrecy, it\u2019s hard to know if this was an isolated incident. Given that Sun did not test positive in his other events at nationals, the belief is yes, this is an isolated incident. Nevertheless, this continues to shed light on a country that, 20 years later, is still trying to get away from its past.<\/p>\n
And those are your top five swimming headlines of the past week. Things will cool down a bit this week as Americans slide up to the table for the Thanksgiving weekend, but there will still be plenty to talk about and we\u2019ll count down those top five headlines for you on our next show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Photo by Maddy Olson PHOENIX – College dual meets were the big topic of the weekend, and the USA Swimming Grand Prix gave postgrads their first racing opportunities of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":115082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Drug Tests, Coaching Changes and Sizzling Swims On \"The Week That Was\" @swimoutlet","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,41226,41224],"tags":[25028,34911,25037,24850,26168,1517,16505,25342,46358,27702,25270,46359,25038,102,35,25400,31742,142,25035],"class_list":["post-115251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-weekly-review-videos","category-videos","tag-arena-grand-prix","tag-brant-best","tag-caitlin-leverenz","tag-conor-dwyer","tag-elizabeth-beisel","tag-frank-busch","tag-jacco-verhaeren","tag-james-magnussen","tag-lach-falvey","tag-libby-trickett","tag-megan-romano","tag-mitch-falvey","tag-nathan-adrian","tag-olympics","tag-rio-de-janeiro","tag-simone-manuel","tag-sun-yang","tag-swimming","tag-tyler-clary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n