Swimming Blogs - Chris DeSantis

No, I'm not in Beijing like my "friend" Garrett. I'm at home, just like most of you, watching the NBC telecast. Still, Garrett has only made his way into one session, so I decided I would recap last night's finals because essentially we saw the same thing. The only difference was that I had Rowdy and Dan Hicks and he had no idea what anyone was saying.

The lead story was the big win by Alain Bernard. Bernard had it tough for a few days, weathering the media storm surrounding his comments and his last second loss to Jason Lezak. He traded the world record with Eamon Sullivan. Sullivan leaves the meet still the world record holder while Bernard has the gold medal. Its a question often posed which one of these two prizes an athlete would prefer. More often than not athletes would chose the gold medal and the everlasting glory it entails. Records are temporary and if the world record pace does not abate, Sullivan could become a memory by London.

The Chinese women scored a decisive victory by sweeping the women's 200 fly. Had Liu ZIge been named Lynne Zieger and hailed from St Louis, Missouri, she would have been hailed just as Misty Hyman was in 2000. Their stories are similar, dropping an incredible amount of time in a short period and then rocketing past the Australian favorite for Olympic gold. Sadly, the majority of comments I have read have been thinly veiled allegations of PED use. While PED use has been well documented by the Chinese team in the very recent past, there exists little evidence as of now to point that finger. I have always maintained that performance alone should not preclude guilt.

Kitajima won gold in the 200 breaststroke in a race that looked much closer than it actually was. He controlled the race from start to finish while a crew of swimmers battled for the medals behind him. As bitter as it might be for team USA fans, Kitajima has cemented himself as breaststroke's lone enduring champion. He is the first man to go back to back in either the 100 or 200.

The shocker of the night was Trickett's near miss of the 100 freestyle final, saved only by a false start to Pang Jiaying. The entire semi-final, in fact, appeared quite sluggish and leaves me questioning whether we should have semi-final swims at all. For the most part the semi-finals have been the least exciting part of the entire Olympics. There have been exceptions such as the men's 100 free or women's 100 backstroke. For the most part, the contenders have been content to dial it back in semi-final action and seem to be trying to cut it as close as possible.

The only other action we saw of the night were two semi-finals that didn't do a whole lot to clear up who will medal tonight. Lochte looked good swimming his double but did not go 100% in either race. Peirsol looks like a more solid bet than he did a month ago and will likely break the world record. Behind him I see three swimmers contending for the two remaining medals: Lochte, Rogan, and Irie. In the IM, Phelps should go mostly unchallenged. What remains to be seen is whether Cseh can have the kind of IM that he swam in the 400 here and beat Lochte. Others are close but I don't see them beating either of those two.

The most remarkable aspect of this meet, a story we've been eagerly anticipating, is the reception of swimming. While it remains to be seen whether swimming can ride the Phelps wave over the next four years, one thing really stood out to me yesterday. I was watching Sportscenter, and Dwyane Wade and Lebron were being asked questions about Phelps after they attended a finals session. That the question was being asked at all was pretty unprecedented for our sport. Lets hope it doesn't stay that way.