Catching up - Results and News

Sorry I've been a little MIA this week, but I've been finishing up fall semester. I took my last final yesterday and now I have 2 whole days to get my life together and learn French before leaving for Paris on Monday.

Let's start the weekend with some meet results...

The Dutch Open started Thursday and Randall Bal, Duje Draganja, and all my favorite Canadian guys are over there doing some Long Course swimming. I won't list full results, you can find those at OmegaTiming.com, but a few notables:

• Randall Bal won the 100 Back in a time of 53.54.
• Joe Bartoch came close to his National record (53.53) and won silver in the 100 fly in 53.99.
• Pieter Van Den Hoogenband (1:46.46) won the 200 free with Romans Miloslavskis of Latvia following at 1:48.85 and Brent Hayden took the bronze in 1:49.08.
• Annamay Pierse of Canada broke her own National record in the 200 breast swimming 2:25.22 to win the event.
• Inge Dekker of the Netherlands won both the 100 fly (58.88) and the 200 free (1:58.63).

The third day of competition is in progress and it's sprint day! Prelim results this morning included Fairplay award winner Emil Tahirovic of Slovenia qualifying for the 50 breast in a time of 28.29, and Scott Dickens in 29.09 (no sign of the Greeks this meet). Joe Bartoch qualifying for the 50 fly in 24.58 with the winner of the 100 fly, Portugal's Simao Gomes Morgado, just behind him at 24.72. Brent Hayden (22.52), Matthew Rose (22.64), Duje Draganja (22.78, and George Bovell (23.27) all qualifying for the 50 free final, but in a quirk of this particular meet that allows Melbourne medalists to skip prelims and take a spot in the final, Bovell got knocked into the B final by the entrance of Van Den Hoogenband.

Finals begin in just a few short hours! You can watch it "live" on Omega Timing.

I'll add more about finals later...

In other swimming news, Congress has awarded Congressional Gold Medals to the 1980 Olympic team who was forced to boycott the games. Team members affected include swimmers Jill Sterkel, Glenn Mills, Rowdy Gaines, and Mike Bottom, and coach George Haines who was scheduled to head the team, and Randy Reese and Mark Schubert who were on the schedule to be assistant coaches. Swimming World Magazine has put their 1980 Olympic Trials issue online for those who'd like to see the full team list and read more about the 1980 Olympic season and the details of how the athletes, coaches and politicians handled the disapointment. It's really fascinating and I'd hope current athletes would take a look and find a little extra motivation in it.