Monthly Archives: February 2013

Olympian Amanda Beard to hold clinic at OAC

Amanda Beard, a seven-time Olympic medalist and three-time Olympian, will be at Olympic Aquatic Club for a swim clinic on March 16. The clinic for 10 years and under will run from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The 11 and older session will be from 1-5 p.m. Amanda Beard is the sister of OAC swim coach Taryn Beard.

*UPDATE: The clinic is for swimmers ages 5-18.

During the overlap, Beard and clinic participants will go to the Olympic High auditorium to hear Beard talk about her career. Beard, who won two golds, four silvers and a bronze and is former world-record holder in the breaststroke, will be on deck during the clinics, but won’t be swimming. She is expecting her second child.

Each session swimmers will have the chance to interact with Beard and be able to take pictures.

Registration for the clinic begins Saturday for swimmers who wish to attend but are not registered with OAC. To register, go to the registration table at the March Madness meet at OHS, Saturday-Sunday. Registration fee is $45 and payment is required in advance.

The event is open to anyone who wishes to attend, but the number of participants is limited.

For more information, contact OAC president Ed Hamilton at edhamilton@gmail.com

 

CK grad in first Pac-12 meet

Brendon Weiner
Brendan Weiner

Arizona State freshman Brendan Weiner will get his first taste of the Pac-12 championships when the meet opens Thursday morning at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way.

Weiner, a 2011 Central Kitsap product, will swim in the 500-yard freestyle at 11 a.m. in the preliminaries. Weiner is seeded 54th. Finals are at 6 p.m. He is also slated to swim in the 200 freestyle on Friday, he’s seeded 73rd, and the 1,650 (mile) freestyle on Saturday. Those finals begin at 4 p.m.

I’ll note that Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian holds the Pac-12 record in both the 50 and 100 freestyles. Adrian, a California grad, set the 50 mark in 2011 in 18.66 seconds and the 100 in 2009 in 41.08.

Bremerton Y qualifies girls relay to nationals

The Bremerton YMCA swim team qualified its 200-yard freestyle relay (girls) for the upcoming YMCA Nationals in April, and set a team record at the Y Regionals Feb. 23-24 at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way.

The team, Sarah Avery, Leah Avery, Samantha Carlin and Alicia Carlin, set a record in one minute, 40.05 seconds. The relay will join Samantha Lingenbrink, who has already qualified in two events, at the Nationals in Greensboro, N.C., April 3-6.

Bremerton Y’s Isaiah Snow placed second in the 11-12 boys overall high point score. He also set team records in the 100 individual medley (1:03.95) and 100 breast (1:16.78).

Keep reading for a complete list of Bremerton Y swimmers at regionals:

Continue reading

Pac-12 swimming, diving meets this week at KCAC

The Pac-12 men’s and women’s swimming and diving championships will take place this week and next at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way. The meet begins Wednesday with the finals of the 200-yard medley relay and 800 freestyle relay. Prelims are at 11 a.m. and finals are at 6.

Here’s a link to the Pac-12 website that lists all the particulars.

Some of the notables competing are Olympic gold medalist Rachel Bootsma (California), Honda Sports Award winner and reigning swimmer of the year Caitlin Leverenz (Cal), former Pac-10 diving champion Harrison Jones (Arizona State), current Pac-12 champion and NcAA runner-up in the backstroke Maya DiRado (Stanford), the 2012 NCAA Champion and Olympic silver medalist Haley Anderson (USC).

Central Kitsap product Brendon Weiner is a freshman at Arizona State and my guess is he should be traveling with the team. He swims the middle distance events, so I’ll keep an eye out for him this week.

It should be noted that both Cal Poly and UC-Santa Barbara are affiliate members for swimming and diving.

Former CK swimmer qualifies for NCAAs

Jeremy Torres
Jeremy Torres

Hartwick (Oneonta, N.Y.) College sophomore Jeremy Torres had two strong showings last week at the UNYSCSCA/Empire 8 men’s and women’s swimming championships in Ithaca, New York.

Torres, a 2011 Central Kitsap graduate, had the second-fastest time in school history in the 200-yard breaststroke in two minutes, 6.69 seconds, which helped him place third. His time was good enough for an NCAA B cut. Torres was also seventh in the 100 breast.

Hartwick is ranked 15th in the latest CollegeSwimming.com Division III poll.

Phelps to make debut on ‘The Haney Project’ next week

Okay swim fans, have you been wondering what Michael Phelps has been up to lately?

The most-decorated Olympic champion of all time has traded in his cap and goggles for clubs and golf balls and is working with esteemed golf coach Hank Haney for the next series of The Haney Project. The series debuts Monday on the Golf Channel at 6 p.m.

Here’s a great story by Will Graves of the Associated Press, who caught up with Phelps in Sarasota, Fla., during spring training for the Baltimore Orioles.

                  

SARASOTA, Fla. — Michael Phelps still hops in the pool occasionally, but only so the most decorated Olympian of all-time can get a little peace and quiet.

“Whenever I’m in the pool I don’t have to answer questions, I don’t have to say ‘Hi!'” Phelps said. “It’s my time. That’s something that I don’t get often. It’s a good little getaway for me.”

And that’s it.

Six months into retirement, the man with more gold medals than any Olympic athlete insists he’s content with the direction of his life. Sure he still finds himself keeping track of what’s going on in the swimming world, but there are zero urges to call coach Bob Bowman and tell him it’s time to dust off his stopwatch.

Asked if there’s any scenario where he envisions himself giving it one more shot, Phelps says “no” three times and shakes his head. He’s getting used to the question. He just hopes people will start getting used to the answer.

“A lot of great athletes have come out of retirement,” he said. “I just don’t see myself doing it.”

Besides, he’s too busy living out the normal life — well, normal life for a guy with 22 Olympic medals stashed away somewhere — to have time to think about the 2016 Games.

Phelps is finishing up filming of the Golf Channel reality series “The Haney Project.” Phelps and golf coach Hank Haney have spent the last few months trying to tune up the 27-year-old’s game.

The eight-part series will debut next week, and Haney — who counts Tiger Woods among his former students — has come away impressed with how his new pupil has been able to reign in his competitive fire.

Of course Phelps wants to walk out there and shoot 68. He just understands it’s not going to happen anytime soon.

“One of the things he always says is ‘just baby steps, baby steps. Nothing wrong with taking baby steps,'” Haney said. “He’s big on having a plan. He’s big on just making progress even if it’s just little bitty things.”

In that way Phelps considers golf and swimming alike.

“I want to be a good golfer but it’s not going to happen overnight,” Phelps said. “Swimming didn’t happen overnight. I had to put years and years and years into it. Obviously I didn’t think it would be this hard.”

How hard? Before filming started Haney and Phelps played six rounds to get a gauge for what they were getting into. Phelps’ scores were typically in the three-figure range.

Neither will say where Phelps is at with his game now — that’d kind of ruin the journey of the show — but he acknowledged he had the “round of his life” while playing a Gary Player-designed course in Sarasota on Wednesday.

Phelps says there wasn’t much culture shock going from Bowman to Haney as a coach, though there is one slight difference.

Haney makes it a habit to say “good shot” after every shot, regardless of its outcome. Bowman wasn’t quite so forgiving when a workout didn’t quite go as planned.

“They both share the same passion and love of their sport and they want to be the best,” Phelps said.

So does Phelps, who typically plays from the black tees depending on the course.

“I can hit it far, I just don’t know where it’s going to go sometimes,” he said.

Turns out, that’s a pretty good way to describe Phelps’ performance in the batting cage. He and Haney spent 30 minutes taking some swings at Ed Smith Stadium on Thursday, the spring training home of the Baltimore Orioles, Phelps’ hometown team.

Wearing a jersey with the No. 18 on it to match his gold-medal haul, the 6-foot-4 Phelps looked pretty comfortable with a bat in his hands for the first time since he played Little League as a kid.

Well, most of the time anyway. At one point Orioles third-base coach Bobby Dickerson worked Phelps inside. Phelps jerked out of the way and couldn’t help but laugh as a handful of players and Baltimore manager Buck Showalter struggled to suppress a giggle.

Still, there were signs of the old competitiveness that made Phelps so unbeatable for so long. During his final turn he dug in and sent a steady stream of well-struck balls into the outfield.

Not bad for a retiree. A permanent one at that.

“I’m enjoying myself,” Phelps said. “I get to travel the world. I get to play a different golf course pretty much almost every day. It’s been a pretty cool retirement.”

Hypoxic training a real danger for swimmers

A 16-year-old high school swimmer passed out and suffered a seizure last week during a breath-control exercise near Chicago recently.

Alex Bousky was trying to break a breath-holding record and after 75 yards underwater he passed out. Bousky was rescued by a teammate, Charlie Cain, 17, at Notre Dame High School in Peoria, Ill., near Chicago.

You can read about it here.

Nathan Adrian to compete in France in March

It took some digging, but I found out that Bremerton’s Olympic champion Nathan Adrian will be competing in a three-day meet in Marseilles, France, March 1-3.

Here’s the website. It’s in French, but the upper right-hand corner has an English translation. It looks like there will be live results as well.

The site has not posted a psych sheet yet, or schedule, so I don’t know what days the 50 and 100 freestyle will be — but I’ll update as soon as I find out.

I only happened upon this meet because Nathan tweeted in a reply to a fan on Twitter that he was flying to France Thursday for a competition. Extensive internet searches led me to the meet in Marseilles. Thankfully, my two years studying French helped me navigate the site.

 

Aussie men’s relay set to reveal poor behavior leading up to London Olympics

Australia Swimming has taken a public relations hit the last day or so when two published independent reports called the 2012 London Olympic team “toxic.”

Specifically, the men’s team that included James Magnussen, Eamon Sullivan, James Roberts and Matt Targett, have come under scrutiny for their behavior at a training camp in Manchester leading up to the London Games.

Mel Stewart of SwimSwam.com said members of the Australian swim team, “Magnussen, Sullivan, James Roberts, Targett, Cameron McEvoy and Tommaso D’Orsogna will join Daniel Kowalski, CEO of Australia’s Swimmers Association and Barclay Nettlefold President of Australian Swimming at a press conference (Friday) where they will admit to their use/abuse of prescription drugs and inappropriate behavior at a staging camp in Manchester leading into the London Olympics.”

Various Australian newspapers have reported the men’s team, specifically the 4×100 free relay, was popping pills and taking energy drinks and going on “rampages” in the team hotel. The reports also said there was cases of “getting drunk, misuse of prescription drugs, breaching curfews, deceit and bullying.”

Australia is crazy nuts about swimming. It is a huge sport, right along with the NFL and NBA here in the U.S.

The Australia media covers swimming like ESPN covers Tim Tebow.

Anything whatsoever to do with swimming, positive or negative, is blown up in the media spotlight for weeks Down Under. Here’s an article from bordermai.com.au, perthnow.com.au, and the guardian.co.uk,

You can check out SwimSwam’s story here.

You can also read SwimmingWorld Magazine’s commentary here.

Here’s a snippet of the article from Swimming World:

“Now, here’s a little nugget that didn’t make that independent review. Remember when Nathan Adrian touched out the heavily favored James Magnussen for gold in the 100 free? In the days after his triumph, Mr. Adrian received many-a-deserved back slaps from swimmers from countless countries. But he never expected to get props from the teammates of the swimmer he’d just beaten. He did. Reports soon crossed the Atlantic that some Aussies actually thanked Adrian for beating a man who may have gotten too big for his britches.”

If that doesn’t say a lot about what was happening Down Under, it’s no wonder they only won 10 medals. That is equivalent to American team members congratulating South Africa’s Chad le Clos after he beat Michael Phelps in the 200 butterfly to win gold.

And we all know that never happened because the American team was as well-bonded as ever, and the team had mutual respect for everyone there, including the coaching staff. They were in London to do a job and they did it admirably.

I’ll post again when reports from the press conference are published.