Nathan Adrian Qualifies for 50 Free Finals
July 9th, 2009 by Annette GriffusNathan Adrian of Bremerton will swim in the finals of the 50-meter freestyle tonight at the U.S. Nationals after posting a time of 22.00 seconds in the final preliminary heat this morning in Indianapolis.
Adrian, who lowered his time by .01 seconds, will get his first shot at qualifying for the U.S. world team in the 50.SwimNetwork.com will webcast the finals live beginning at 3 p.m. (local).
Top qualifier Cullen Jones narrowly missed setting an American record in the prelims, with a time of 21.54. Other qualifiers are; Cesar Cielo (21.71), James Feigen (21.92), Nicholas Brunelli (21.94), Garrett Weber-Gale (21.99), Sabir Muhammad (22.08) and Matthew Grevers (22.12).
Garrett-Weber Gale is the current American record-holder in long course meters, while Adrian holds the American and world record in the event in short-course meters.
Swimnetwork.com is predicting a 1-2 finish between Jones and Adrian. You can read about it here. Nathan’s seed time should put him in one of the outer lanes, I’m guessing Lane 6. The reason I mention it is because he does very well from the outside lanes. He swam in Lane 8 at the Olympic Trials last year, and has won major meets swimming in the outer lanes. So I’d look for him to contend very strongly in the ‘splash-and-dash’ this afternoon. It is, however, a race that is very hard to call because the times are so close and there is no strategy in the 50 — if you look closely, you’ll see the racers not raise their heads to take a breath, or do it at the most just once.
It should be a fun race!
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