Swimming Blogs - Chris DeSantis

This weekend the meets at Santa Clara and Texas A&M highlighted a number of swimmers who's chances of making the olympic team seem to be on the rise. One of the primary reasons cited by USA Swimming for having Olympic Trials at such a late date is to be able to select athletes who are performing on a high level in close proximity to the games. Some forecasters surmised we wouldn't see that much high level swimming by American swimmers in advance for the trials as swimmers narrowed their focus toward that meet. Still, there have been a number of high level grand prix type events where it has been quite apparent that a number of swimmers intend to race both fast "in season" and on their "taper". Santa Clara, and to a lesser extent the Texas Senior Circuit meet, were evidence of this. For the purposes of this article, I wanted to look back at the weekend and try to assess who may have used this weekend as a possible springboard towards qualification in Omaha.

Mary Descenza



It would be too easy to say that Santa Clara is the lone piece of evidence that Descenza could end up on the Beijing team. Truth is, Descenza has been at or close to the top in her primary events for a number of years. In 2006 she seemed like a decent bet to make Beijing, as she finished the year ranked 11th in the 100 fly (3rd American behind Coughlin and Komisarz) and 9th in the 200 fly (just barely behind Kim Vandenberg). If Coughlin does not swim the 100 fly, Mary is top two in each butterfly event. However, in 2007 Descenza plummeted to 30th in the world in the 100 fly (9th American). She actually rose to 8th in the 200 fly, but was now behind two Americans, having been passed by a significantly younger Kathleen Hersey. All of a sudden her chances seemed quite slim. In 2008 Descenza has given us every reason to believe she is improving again. I'm sure many people notice the trend of swimmers that perform well above expectations "in season" generally doing very well at the end of their season. At every high level meet that Mary Descenza has swum in this year, she has performed well. In January at the California Grand Prix she dropped extremely fast backstroke (52.4, 1:52.4) and butterfly (52.0, 1:53.0) times. At Short Course Worlds in April she swam a 2:06 200 Back and 2:04 200 fly. Even more impressive was how she went beyond her usual program to compete very well in freestyle events, recording a 1:56 in the 200 free and 4:07 in the 400 free. While her 200 free LCM (2:00) is still some distance from what she will need to qualify for the 4x200 relay for USA, it puts her within striking distance. All of her fast swimming culminated with her 2:07.77 200 fly at Santa Clara, remarkable in that it was her lifetime best. Its not as if Descenza is not a swimmer who has typically swam better in advance of her biggest meet. In past years she has traditionally recorded her best times at US Nationals or in international competition.

Elizabeth Beisel


Beisel's name is one that should be familiar to swim fans, but still it seemed for the first time this weekend that I found it rolling off people's tongue's with alarming regularity on message boards and in the live pre-meet chats here on floswimming. Beisel has been making noise for a number of years as a precocious record shattering age grouper. In 2007 Beisel went from stellar among her peers to downright stellar when she finaled at the World Championships in the 200 back. While her 2:11 in the 200 back. Still, she was just 24th in the world and despite making the World Championship team only had the 9th fastest American 200 back in 2007. In order to qualify for Beijing she would have to leapfrog veterans like Kelly Harrigan and Mary Descenza as well as fellow relatively young swimmers like Teresa Crippen or Kate Riefenstahl. Well, as it turns out, she might not have to at all. While Beisel remains a strong contender to make the team in the 200 back, her 2:10.9 in January doing nothing to dissuade me of that, she has emerged as a better bet to make the team in another event, the 400 IM. At Santa Clara Beisel recorded a 4:36.75, putting her improvement in that event from her 2007 best of 4:44.87 at 2.8%. That 400 IM would have also ranked her 3rd in the world in 2007, behind only Katie Hoff and Kirsty Coventry. This year it ranks her just 6th. In a matter of a year Beisel has leapfrogged two swimmers who seemed likely to vie for the 2nd spot behind Katie Hoff in the 400 IM. With such a young swimmer it is extremely difficult to project what her performances up to this date mean for Omaha.

In the coming weeks as we approach Trials I will try to present the cases of more swimmers who may be peaking at just the right time. Its possible that at the Charlotte Ultra Swim in two weeks we may see more swims that change the picture heading into what is sure to be a very exciting Olympic Trials competition.