In what is one of the last tune ups for many Olympians and Olympic hopefuls, the Arena Pro Swim series heads to Santa Clara and will see quite a turn out.
Nathan Adrian, Dana Vollmer, Anthony Ervin, Natalie Coughlin and Maya DiRado and Simone Manual are just some of the current Olympians who will compete June 3-5. Prelims are at 9 a.m. with finals at 5 p.m.
You can read more about the meet here.
I took an extended weekend to play in the lovely city of Seattle, so I’m posting various links on Nathan Adrian’s wins from last weekend at the Arena Pro Swim Series event in Mesa, Arizona, a little late.
I watched his 100 freestyle and, again, he just absolutely smoked the field. What was impressive about that race was that while his first 50 was fast (22 seconds) his second 50 was nearly as fast. That is something that Nathan has been working on — making sure his back half is just as strong or stronger than his first 50. At this point in the season you want to see improvements there so this is good news for Nathan. He finished in 48.00 to tie with Frances’ Florent Manaudou for the fourth-fastest time of the year.
And if you can smoke the field in a 50 free, Nathan did just that winning easily in 21.69. It was the third fastest time in the world this year. Watching that race, he looked just as smooth as always with very little wasted effort.
As far as the series goes, Nathan still holds the overall lead with 40 points. He has double wins in four events now — Minneapolis, Austin, Orlando and Mesa. He has collected $8,000 in prize money to boot.
And you can check out all of Nathan’s swims on his YouTube channel here.
Bremerton’s Olympic champion Nathan Adrian will compete in this week’s Arena Pro Swim Series event at Mesa, Arizona.
Adrian is seeded first in the 50-meter freestyle, which is Friday, and in Saturday’s 100 freestyle.
A live webcast of the entire meet can be seen on usaswimming.org. The meet is being televised (tape delay) on NBC Sports Network at 3:30 p.m. Saturday and at 9 p.m. Sunday.
The Mesa meet is the fourth in the series and features a record $350,000 in overall prize money. Adrian leads the male standings with 30 points.
When last I talked to Nathan Adrian at the U.S. Winter Nationals in December at King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, he mentioned that when he’s home in Berkeley, California, it’s rare to have much downtime between training.
After spending last week at the Arena Pro Swim Series in Orlando, where he swept both the freestyle events, Nathan returned home briefly before heading to southern California for the Team USA Media Summit Monday. Check out this link for more photos of Nathan from his shoot with USA Today. It’s a good thing Nathan has a great sense of humor, because I’m sure he’s going to take a lot of ribbing from his friends and family!
This link should take you to some behind-the-scenes shots of Nathan and Simone Manuel from the media summit. If not, check out @usaswimming on Twitter.
Then it was off to the Olympic Training Center on Tuesday for more high-altitude training. Nathan said he really gets a lot out of the OTC because everything an elite athlete needs is there — from nutrition, recovery, training, etc. — and he can focus on his training without distractions.
Nathan is scheduled to possibly race in the Pro Swim Series in Mesa, Arizona, but will be in Charlotte and Santa Clara leading up to the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Omaha at the end of June, beginning of July.
Bremerton’s multiple gold medalist Nathan Adrian posted the second-fastest time this year, winning the 50-meter freestyle at the Arena Pro Swim Series Friday.
Adrian, who swims for California, had a strong start and closed out the win in 21.70 seconds, to move him up from fourth in the world rankings. Florida’s Caeleb Dressell finished second in 22.06.
Adrian said he was happy to go under 22-seconds just four months out from the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, but wasn’t thrilled but how he finished the sprint race.
“The finish wasn’t so hot,” he said. “There’s no strategy (in the 50), there is adjustment when it comes to your finish. I should have known my markings just a little bit better just to know where the flags are.”
That adjustment, Adrian said, would have allowed him to lengthen out his stroke a little more and possibly touch in 21.6.
Dressel has come on the scene quickly after setting a short-course American record at the Southeastern Conference swimming and diving championships last month. Dressel posted the two fastest times in the history of the 50 free, breaking Adrian’s NCAA record in 2011 of 19.66 in 18.23.
Adrian had high praise for the 19-year-old, who he raced head-to-head for the first time.
“The sky is the limit for that kid,” he said. “It’s going to be a fun couple of years.”
Per Bill Fay of The Associated Press…
ORLANDO, Fla. — The first day of the Arena Pro Swim Series went as expected with Olympians Michael Phelps, Katie Ladecky and Conor Dwyer winning the featured events.
Phelps ran down Tom Shields in the final 50 meters and held on at the wall to win the 100-meter butterfly in a time of 52.28. Shields was just behind at 52.35
Ladecky easily beat a field packed with Olympians in the 200-meter freestyle. The 19-year-old from Capital Swim Club in Washington D.C., swam a 1:55.73 to beat fellow Olympians Missy Franklin, who swam 1:57.67 and Allison Schmitt, who was third at 1:58.16.
Dwyer was swimming competitively for the first time in two months. He jumped ahead of Dion Dreesens on the final turn and coasted home to win the men’s 200-meter freestyle with a time of 1:46.96. Dressens was second at 1:48.17.
The three-day meet concludes Saturday.
Good story here from Associated Press writer Paul Newberry (@pnewberry1963) on Missy Franklin for the first day of the Arena Pro Swim in Orlando …
By Paul Newberry
The Associated Press
ORLANDO, Fla. — Get this: There are times when Missy Franklin is frustrated.
OK, it’s not as if she’s suddenly turned all cranky and rude. The Olympic champion still walks around the pool with a perpetual smile. But subpar performances over the past year have started to get under her skin a bit.
With the Rio Games just five months away, she knows it’s time to start producing.
“I definitely don’t want to come off like everything is happy all the time,” she said before this weekend’s Arena Pro Series meet in Orlando, not far from the make-believe world of Disney. “When I come back from some of these meets, I am for sure frustrated.”
At 17, Franklin was one of the biggest stars at the London Olympics, competing in seven events and winning four gold medals and a bronze. Away from the pool, her bubbly personality only enhanced her appeal, though she didn’t cash in right away since she wanted to compete collegiately.
After two years at Cal, Franklin finally turned pro last year, setting up some major endorsement deals heading into Rio (she’s already landed with Speedo and Minute Maid). But, while she has a lot more money in her pocket, it’s been a struggle to regain the form that made her the world’s most dominant female swimmer — a title ceded to fellow American Katie Ledecky.
At the 2015 world championships, Franklin failed to win any of her four individual events, settling for a silver and two bronzes. In the last Pro Series meet at Austin, Texas, in January, she again failed to win any individual events and, tellingly, trailed far behind Ledecky in the 100- and 200-meter freestyles.
“I left there being really frustrated,” said Franklin, insisting she did some of her hardest training before the meet. “Why is this not coming through? Why is this not being shown when I’m racing? I think it’s important to let yourself feel like that. If you do kind of push those things aside and pretend they’re not there, it’s all going to come back and hit you when you don’t want it to.”
The key, she said, is using that angst the right way.
“You know what? This may not be happening right now,” she said. “It’s OK to be frustrated, but use it for something good. I promise you, it’s going to pay off when it needs to.”
In addition to turning pro, Franklin moved back to her Colorado home and reunited with longtime coach Todd Schmitz. They’ve been adapting to a new style of coach-athlete relationship, one that the 20-year-old swimmer calls more of a partnership.
“He knows I learned so much being away for two years, as a person and as a swimmer,” Franklin said. “When I was 17, he had to lay down the line a little bit more. Now, we draw the line together.”
Schmitz has prodded Franklin to turn some of the tough times into motivation leading to Rio.
“When you throw gasoline on an unlit match, it doesn’t do anything,” the coach said. “I think that’s the same thing with Missy. You’ve got to use that as fuel on your fire. You don’t want to think about it too much, but you know what, there are some key times where I’ve got to look at her and go, ‘Hey.'”
He’ll even bring up the London Olympics, where things went so well.
“She missed a bronze medal in the 200 free by a hundredth of a second,” Schmitz recalled. “She can usually dig down and find that motivation, but sometimes I’ll say, ‘Hundredth of a second.’ That’s all I have to say.”
Away from the pool, Franklin has started working on a book with her parents. She calls it “a family memoir,” a chance to reveal how the three of them were “able to stay true to ourselves and true to each other” even as Franklin became a teenage phenomenon.
Titled “Relentless Spirit,” the book is due in early December.
You know what would help sales?
A few more gold medals.
Franklin isn’t one to make bold predictions. Like most swimmers, she can’t even bring herself to say definitively she’ll be in Rio since she still has to go through the ultra-competitive U.S. Olympic trials.
But she certainly hasn’t lost her confidence.
“I trust that I’m on this path for a reason and I’m going to do my best to live it out,” she said. “I have that faith that I’ll be ready when I need to be ready.”
In case you missed it, here’s a link from Mel Stewart’s Gold Medal Minute on Nathan Adrian and his road to Rio….
And, Bob Schaller caught up with Nathan recently for another 20 Question Tuesday. You can find that think here.
Be sure to check out the blog and my Twitter feed, @AnnetteKSSports, from this week’s Arena Pro Swim Series Orlando event. Nathan is seeded first in the 50 free (Friday) and second (Saturday) in the 100 free.
Bremerton’s multi-gold medalist Nathan Adrian is one of several Team USA headliners swimming at the Arena Pro Swim series in Orlando, Florida, beginning Thursday at the YMCA Aquatic Center.
The long-course meet continues through Saturday.
Adrian is the top seed in Friday’s loaded 50-meter freestyle that includes Brazil’s Bruno Fratus and Cesar Cielo, current American short-course recordholder Caeleb Dressell and Josh Schneider, among others.
Adrian is seeded second behind Michael Phelps in the 100 free, which is Saturday.
The meet will be webcast in its entirety at usaswimming.org. Preliminaries begin at 6 a.m. local with finals at 3 p.m. TV coverage will air on same-day delay Friday from 7-8:30 p.m. on Universal HD and Saturday from 4:30-6 p.m. on NBC Sports Network.
The swim series is in its third of seven stops. Adrian leads the men’s standings, followed by Phelps and Conor Dwyer. Swimmers are awarded points in each individual Olympic event throughout the series, five points for first, three for second and one point for third place. The overall winners of the series earn a $10,000 bonus. Individual winners at each meet are awarded $1,000, $600 for second place and $200 for third.
Nathan Adrian of Bremerton won the 100-meter freestyle at the Arena Pro Swim series event at Austin, Texas, on Friday afternoon.
Adrian led from the start, turning at the 50-meter mark with the lead in 23.10 seconds and out-touched France’s Jeremy Stavius 48.91 to 48.96 at the finish. Jimmy Feigen finished third in 49.20.
Adrian will swim the 50 free on Saturday. The prelims are at 7 a.m. with the finals at 4 p.m. local time. The meet is being shown via livestream at usaswimming.org.
