Phelps dropped the 200-meter freestyle from his Olympic program Monday, which means he will swim seven events in London and won’t try to duplicate his otherworldly eight gold medals in eight events in Beijing.
“So you won’t hear the number eight again,” said a smiling Bob Bowman, Phelps’ longtime coach, who announced the change. “It just makes sense. Nobody should be expected to do that twice. Once was more than enough. Trust me.”
Australia’s Olympic athletes have been banned from using Stilnox, Rohypnol and Mogadon and warned their rooms will be raided if they are suspected of using the sedatives. Read The Herald Sun.
“Please confirm that the search and seizure provisions in our Team Membership Agreements for athletes and officials will enable the Team Executive to enter bedrooms,” he wrote.
Grant Hackett’s former coach Denis Cotterell has no doubt the controversial sleeping medication Stilnox cost the 1500 freestyle champion his third and historic Olympic gold medal. Read The Australian
According to Cotterell, Hackett had slipped into an adaptation phase after swimming two astonishing broken 1500m time trials at the Australian team’s staging camp in Singapore and began to panic when he arrived in Beijing to find that his speed had deserted him.
“He couldn’t sleep so he took the Stilnox to settle his nerves,” Cotterell said. “For sure that contributed to his lack of clarity in the 1500m final. I’ve got no doubts about that.”
PlanetSport.tv meets the Malawi Olympic Team as they arrive in the UK, at their training camp in Gloucester University. Charlton Nyirenda shares his thoughts on swimming in the Olympics for the second time and what it means to represent his country at the highest level.
Charlton Nyirenda Olympic Build Up 2012 from Planet Sport on Vimeo.
The 16th FINA World Championships will take place in Kazan, Russia in 2015! Discover the first images in this video! Via the17thman
This is just amazing, at the U.S. Olympic Trials yesterday evening, 2000 Olympic gold medalist Anthony Ervin qualified for the Olympics alongside Cullen Jones in the men’s 50 freestyle, 21.60 to 21.59 (2000 Olympic gold was 21.98), Ervin having returned only last year from what sounds like a rock ‘n roll walkabout since 2003. Brushing aside other favorites like Nathan Adrian and Josh Schneider, true talent manifesting itself. Missy Franklin and Elizabeth Beisel took the women’s 200 backstroke in 2:06.12 and 2:07.58, Michael Phelps and Tyler McGill the men’s 100 butterfly in 51.14 and 51.32 (good on you, McGill!), and Kathleen Ledecky and Kate Ziegler the women’s 800 freestyle in 8:19.78 to 8:21.87. See all results from day 7 here.
Germany’s Paul Biedermann on top of the medal podium at the Budapest 2010 European Swimming Championships, having won the men’s 200 freestyle in 1:46.06. Russia’s Nikita Lobintsev 2nd in 1:46.51 and the Netherlands’s Sebastiaan Verschuren 3rd in 1:46.91. See result list here.
Team Coco’s resident gamer Bley introduces the maestro to Michael Phelps’ new competitive swimming video game “Push The Limit.” Conan then reviews the game on a scale of 1 to 45 based on his extensive ignorance of video games in general. See Team Coco
