Month: April 2008

Bernard broke the opposition and softened up the record with the fierce speed of his first length.

“I always went out very fast. If you think before the race that the end will be tiring you’ll never make it,” he said.

He acknowledged there had been a change in approach to the classic 100m race, with the emphasis now on power rather than technique as exemplified by past master Alexander Popov and Van den Hoogenband, who was not well enough to swim the event here.

“Yes, it’s more power, but power always with technique. Without technique it’s very difficult to swim,” Bernard said.

Source: tvnz.co.nz

Courtesy of www.scmsom.se, here is the complete record list of the 2008 World Short Course Championships in Manchester. 18 World records, 35 Championship records, 28 African, 15 American, 2 Asian, 22 European and 17 Oceanic, plus a lot more national.

In case you didn’t know, the complete European Swimming Championships competition analysis is available here at swim.ee, alongside LEN competition analyses dating back to Helsinki 2000. An interesting addition this time is the summary statistics, which summarizes tendencies in swimming tactics and technique at Eindhoven 2008.

Helge Meeuw set a new 100 meter backstroke long course record at the German Olympic Trials today, swimming 53.10 where his and Liam Tancock’s former record was 53.46. And former South African Sarah Poewe set at new 100 meter breaststroke record in the time of 1:07.10, where the record of Ukranian Anna Khlystunova was 1:07.27. Source: SwimNews.

The Australian Olympic Committee has decided to ban Nick D’Arcy from Beijing 2008, after an investigation following the 20-year-old’s nightclub altercation with former Commonwealth swimming champion Simon Cowley in Sydney last month. Coach Brian Stehr says that this probably has ended D’Arcy’s swimming career. Read more here on AidelaideNow.

Bob Bowman is stepping down as the University of Michigan men’s swimming coach, and he’s likely taking protege Michael Phelps with him back to Baltimore. Read about it here on mlive.com.

That must have been painful, being so much the favorite and so much in the lead, until the last 25 meters.

Australian former olympic swimmer Scott Miller was under heavy police surveillance for almost two years before he and ex-rugby player Mark Catchpole were arrested on charges of possession of a tablet press, two counts of possessing a proscribed restricted substance and possessing an offensive weapon. He allegedly had capsicum spray and steroids in his bedroom and the Herald Sun understands he told police the steroids were for horses. Read all about it here in the Herald Sun, and here on SwimInfo.com.

Some 8 years ago, a wise man at the Olympiastützpunkt Hamburg told us students, that he expected the underwater dolphin kicks in backstroke to be where the biggest performance improvements would be made in swimming technique the coming years.

Watch this video from the 200 backstroke final in Manchester this weekend, and notice how equal the two leading swimmers are, until Rogan (yellow cap) stays underwater just that little bit more after the last turn, that makes the difference between a world record and number two.

Very interesting read about the state of the art Australian Institute of Sport, where they monitor everything and use pacemaker lights and other stuff to sharpen up training. Also interesting read about how Bernard, Nystrand and Sullivan use video analysis and lots of races to keep ahead of the pack.