Wide World of Kitsap Sports

It’s been a busy last few weeks for Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian, America’s best hope for winning a medal in the sprint freestyle at the Olympic in London this summer.

Adrian, a panelist at the United States Olympic Committee Summit in Dallas Monday, met First Lady Michelle Obama, and took time to pose for photos during a session with Reuters and Getty Images as well as KING5′s Allen Schaffler, which you can see here.

Here’s the link to a fun little story about how Nathan wants to bring back the dominance of American sprinting at an international level on Foxsports.com

Also, nbcolympics.com has a couple videos of Nathan, one showing off his prowess of remote-control helicopter flying. And, U.S. diver Brittany Viola teaches Nathan how to salsa.

Swimming website swimswam.com recently posted a story on Cal’s sprinters gearing up for the 50 free at the U.S. Olympic trials this summer.

Of course, you all know which swimmer we cover here at The Sun, Bremerton’s own Olympic gold medalist Nathan Adrian.

Swimswam.com’s Braden Keith picked Adrian to be the guy to beat and therefore qualifying for the London Games in the 50, followed by Jimmy Feigen. The top two qualifiers earn automatic berths on the team.

Click on the link above to read the story.

Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian set meet and pool records in the 100-meter freestyle Friday at the Fran Crippen Memorial Swim Meet of Champions in Mission Viejo, Calif.

Adrian won in 48.54 seconds, bettering the record held by Jason Lezak of 48.75, to improve on his season best of 48.62 set at the Indianapolis Grand Prix last month. His time also moved him to 10th in the world rankings.

Talk about an eventful, and satisfying, meet.

Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian won the 50-meter freestyle by .01 seconds over George Bovell at the Indianapolis Grand Prix Friday afternoon.

Adrian touched the wall in 22.88 seconds. It’s the fourth-fastest time in the world so far this year. Bovell had the lead coming into the wall, but Adrian had a great finishing kick to just out-touch Bovell at the wall. Former Olympic champion Anthony Ervin was third in 22.24.

Adrian beat Michael Phelps in the 100 freestyle Thursday, despite his swim trunks ripping in the back as he bent over on the blocks. Thanks to the rip, Adrian has been all over the internet, garnering plenty of attention.

Here’s a funny story out of Arizona about how Willie Bloomquist’s teammates like to take advantage of his temper.
Poulsbo’s supercross star Ryan Villopoto is close to winning back-to-back titles.
South Kitsap product Aaron Cunningham is in the running for a bench spot in Cleveland.
South Kitsap’s Jason Hammel is in Baltimore this year, and his last spring training start went well.

Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian managed to come up all smiles after winning the 100 freestyle at the Indy Grand Prix Thursday afternoon, despite his jammer suit ripping in the back.

Adrian joins a none-too-illustrious group that have had their suits rip during competition — most notable Texas product Ricky Berens at the 2009 World Championships and Italy’s Flavia Zoccari at the Mediterranean Games also in 2009 — but those were in the now-banned, full-body polyurethane (rubber) suits.

Adrian’s suit is a textile suit and goes from his waist to his knees.

After touching the wall in a time of 48.62 to set a meet record (Michael Phelps held the record at 48.89) and was laughing when a meet official handed him a towel. Adrian put the towel on before getting out of the pool and gave a thumbs-up sign to his fans, flashing a big grin.

The towel slipped off during an on-deck, post-race interview and Adrian could do nothing but re-wrap the towel, laugh again, and finished the interview.

Phelps finished a close second in 48.74 and Darian Townsend was third in 49.14.

Adrian will be back in the pool Friday in the 50 free.

USAswimming is live streaming the grand prix with prelims at 5:30 a.m. and finals at 3 p.m.

Also, here’s a link to a video and story referring to Nathan at the Indy meet by Channel 13 in Indiana.

Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian was the fastest qualifier in the 100-meter freestyle Thursday morning at the Indianapolis Grand Prix.

Adrian’s time of 49.04 seconds put him ahead of Darian Townsend, 49.52, and David Walter, 49.76. Also qualifying for the finals was Michael Phelps, who slid into the seventh spot in 50.16.

Notable names who did not qualify for the finals include Ryan Lochte, Cullen Jones, Anthony Ervin, who is on the comeback trail, Josh Schneider and Adrian’s former California teammate William Copeland.

Most of the big names are competing at the event, which could be one of the fastest grand prix meets to date as the Olympic swim trials are just about three months away.

Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian is one of several Team USA headliners that will compete today-Saturday at the Indianapolis Grand Prix.

Adrian is seeded No. 1 in the 100-meter freestyle, just .03 seconds ahead of Michael Phelps, and is the second seed in the 50 free. The 100 free is Thursday and the 50 free is Friday.

USAswimming.org will be livestreaming the prelims and finals. Prelims begin at 5:30 a.m. with finals at 3 p.m.

Bremerton Olympic gold medalist Nathan Adrian was featured in a story by Henry J. Cordes of the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald Wednesday.

Here’s the link to the story.

Omaha will again host the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, June 25-July 2. It’s the same venue where Adrian earned a spot on the 2008 Olympic team and won a gold medal in Beijing as a member of the 400 free relay preliminary team.

Ran across this item, making a comparison between Willie Bloomquist and the band Pavement, which had a cult following in the 1990s.
Actually, this link discusses the article that makes that comparison.
It’s an interesting argument, as those from Baseball Prospectus often are. If you’re a Bloomquist fan, you probably won’t enjoy it.