Swimming Blogs - Chris DeSantis

To get some perspective on the world swimming picture heading into Beijing, I tried to put myself back in time to last summer. In only twelve months, some swimmers have gone from looking like sure things to being completely out of the discussion when it comes to Beijing. Much of it is just the nature of an Olympic year, where you can often find tremendous volatility in performances and certain swimmers like Gary Hall Jr are peaking for just that summer.

The upheaval in men's sprinting has been well documented. Just a year ago Alexander Popov's 21.64 seemed only to be under threat by Roland Schoeman, now we could see an Olympic final with all three medalists faster. In the 100, the forgotten soul must be Stefan Nystrand. Remember him? The second man in history to go under 48 seconds has remained mostly quiet in the build up to this summer's games. Of course, he found the time to obliterate the SCM world record in the 100 free:

Note that Nystrand is not a talented underwater swimmer that takes advantage of the additional short course walls. He is a straight power sprinter who turns it over with a ridiculous straight arm recovery. Now, I'm not enough of an insider to have any idea what's been going on with him since he set that world record in November. Perhaps Stefan decided to just train straight through after November for the Olympic games. His performances were well off his best at the European Championships where Alain Bernard set the 100 freestyle world record. He medaled, but he was well back from Bernard and according to Craig Lord he did little to hide his contempt for Bernard:

http://www.swimnews.com/News/displayStory.jhtml?id=5941

I tried to watch the video of the race to see what suit Nystrand was wearing, since I have become personally convinced of their performance enhancement. It did not appear he was wearing a current generation suit, which may have explained his loss to Bernard. If you accept then that Nystrand hasn't had a full peak since November and that he has yet to don a current generation suit, and yet he was 47.92, then you must believe he is a front-runner in Beijing. I feel the same way about Van Den Hoogenband, who dropped out of the European Championships and just a few months ago gave the blueseventy a shot on his way to a 1:44.9 200 free. Both men, the first under 48, have seen themselves passed by a host of other sprinters, but I believe that each has yet to swim their best this year.

As a fan, it can be completely perplexing to follow swimmers when you don't have insight into their training. I said earlier that its possible that Nystrand has trained through everything since November. I really have no data to back that up except for his slightly off performances at the European Championships. Contrast that with Grant Hackett's recent stellar 800 swim. Should we take it as a sign that Hackett is rounding back into form and will torch his distance rivals in Beijing after a very disappointing 2007? Or should I be worried that Hackett is swimming fast 3 weeks out. My inclination is to always favor the swimmer who has the most recent fast performance, but sometimes, the longer view can be more important. Let"s remember, Hackett is still the fastest distance swimmer of all time, and Nystrand could still be faster than Sullivan, Bernard or anyone from the US.