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Sunday, February 10, 2008

Missouri Grand Prix later this week...

Swimming's elite to compete at meet in Columbia

The world record holders in 11 of the meet's 26 individual events will be competing.

Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Aaron Piersol, Brendan Hansen and Ian Crocker are the men's record holders and Natalie Coughlin and Kate Hoff hold the women's records.

According to Linhart,the big names mean many swimmers will get to see how they stack up against world-class competition. She added that with the high level of competition, there is some possibility that more world records will be in danger of being broken at the meet.

In an effort to simulate conditions that will be seen at the Olympics this summer, preliminary rounds are being swum in the evening with the finals the next morning. The finals for the preliminary heats on Friday night will take place on Saturday morning.


Psych Sheet online here.

Some noteables:
  • Amanda Beard entered in a packed Breaststroke field with Tara Kirk, Keri Hehn, Jessica Hardy and Caitlin Leverenz.
  • Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte facing off with Aaron Peirsol in the backstroke.
  • An Ian Crocker and Michael Phelps showdown in the 100 fly (Our boy Mike Cavic is the third seed in that race).
  • Thiago Pereira up against Phelps and Lochte in the 400 IM.
  • And of course Brendan getting a chance to stretch out and let it fly in this Long Course format against Mark Gangloff, Eric Shanteau, Darren Mew, Vlad Polyakov, Giordan Pogioli and many others (including Phelps).

It's going to be a VERY exciting meet and an early preview of Olympic Trials.

Labels:

posted by Michelle at 2/10/2008 02:24:00 AM

6 Comments:

  • It is going to be very exciting to see how Bren goes in the morning finals. I wonder if he has to go to bed at like 8pm and up at like 4am to get ready for this. Have fun Brendan!

    And there are a ton of Internationals swimmers there too. I am sorry I am going to be missing this one. I think this will be the third best meet of 2008 anywhere in the world. Second only to US Olympic Trials and The Olympic Games themselves.

    I really think if you are even toying with the idea of going to this meet you should definitely go! If I weren't already going to see the PCSC champs at my local pool, I would be all over it!

    By Blogger lala, at 2/11/2008 12:49 AM  

  • this meet sounds like it will be fun!
    I've been out of the loop for awhile, but amanda beard? is she swimming just for-fun or for real? thought that was interesting.
    Good luck Bren!

    Happy Valentines Day ladies!!

    By Blogger swimphilly78, at 2/14/2008 9:58 AM  

  • Hey swimphilly! Nice to see you.
    I have been to three meets that Amanda has competed in over the last several months. She has been training with and competitng agasint Jessica Hardy, Rececca Soni and Keri Hehn at USC. Back with Dave Salo, who has coached her to so much success already. The buzz is that she has, up to this time, not been putting in as much time training as the other girls. But I'll bet that she is about to get very serious if she hasn't already. I haven't seen her on a podium yet, but as I said before, she was up against her most fierce competition, which included Tara Kirk. I think Megan Jendrick is the only one who was missing from the pool in the meets I have seen her at.
    I guess what I am trying to say is that even though she hasn't been in her top form, and even though the women's breast stroke races about the deepest field we have, she is still Amanda Beard. I'm not going to count her out unless she withdraws from trials.

    By Blogger lala, at 2/14/2008 1:48 PM  

  • That's a hell of a meet, wow!

    I'm curious to see what goes down in women's breastroke long course. Tara's super fast off the wall, but she loses that advantage LC, especially in the 200. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see Amanda make the 200 over Tara. But man lala, you're right about the women in breaststroke. I can think of at least 7 legit contenders to make the olympic team in the 100 or 200, and no shoe-ins. I'm glad I just bought tickets to trials!

    By Blogger crackinup, at 2/15/2008 2:03 AM  

  • I really wanted to go to this meet but I couldn't get out of work and the seven hour drive just wasn't worth it to see only two sessions.

    I'm thinking about going to trials but I haven't made any decisions yet. What type of ticket is everyone buying? Any ideas on hotels?

    By Blogger Melissa, at 2/15/2008 10:28 AM  

  • Didn't realize this was going to be a morning finals meet... I wish I could be there!

    By Blogger Jessie, at 2/15/2008 7:09 PM  

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