Category Archives: World Championship trials

World Championship TV/Online schedule for the week

I’m re-posting the schedule for the World Championships as I’ve had a couple of requests. Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian will swim the prelims of the 100-meter freestyle at 1 a.m. (Pacific time). The semifinals are at a much more reasonable hour, 9 a.m. Wednesday. You’ll see Nathan’s schedule of events listed below as well.

Here you go:

Wednesday, July 31: 9 a.m.-11 a.m., LIVE, Universal Sports (100 free semifinals)

Thursday, Aug. 1: 9 a.m.-11:30 a.m., LIVE, Universal Sports (100 free finals)

Friday, Aug. 2: 9 a.m.-11:30 a.m., LIVE, Universal Sports (50 free semifinals)

Saturday, Aug. 3: 10 a.m.-1 p.m., NBC; 6 p.m.-8 p.m., re-air, Universal Sports (50 free finals)

Sunday, Aug. 4: 1 p.m.-3 p.m., NBC; 6 p.m.-8 p.m., re-air, Universal Sports (400 medley relay)

*NOTE: All times have been changed to reflect Pacific time

As far as online live streaming, there’s a couple of websites to check out. Universalsports.com is the U.S. feed with Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines. You can also try FirstLowLive (Europe) and vipboxonline.eu. FYI, you do NOT have to download anything with those last two links. Just click out of the advertising and you should be OK. I watched the 400 free relay on one of the European links, and after a bit of figuring out on my part it worked great.

I was also able to watch the universalsports.com stream, but they cut away from swimming to do updates and that was kind of annoying.

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Video of the week: Nathan Adrian will be doing this a lot the next few days

In honor of this week’s U.S. Nationals/World trials in Indianapolis this week, this video of Nathan Adrian shows what he will be doing this week — signing autographs.

Nathan will swim the 100 freestyle Tuesday and the 50 free Saturday. Preliminaries are at 6 a.m. (local time) with the finals at 3 p.m. at Indianapolis.

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U.S. Nationals/World trials broadcast/webcast schedule

Here’s what USA Swimming has planned as far as coverage for the Indianapolis U.S. Nationals/World Championship trials next week, June 25-29.

Universal Sports Network will broadcast the finals from 3-5 p.m. on Tuesday and from 3-5:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

NBC will air its taped program from 1-2:30 p.m. on NBC on Saturday. A re-broadcast will be shown from 8-10 p.m.

The NBC broadcast will be re-shown on Universal Sunday at 1 p.m., and on NBC Sports Network at 8:30 p.m.

USA Swimming is offering a live webcast of the entire meet. Prelims begin at 6 a.m. (local time) with finals at 3 p.m.

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Men’s sprint freestylers posting fast times around the world

The international swimming scene has held most of their world championship trials meets during the last two weeks. Team USA will hold theirs in June, but in the meantime those big boys of the water have been putting down some very fast times so far.

Here’s a breakdown of who’s posted some of the top times in the world so far this year:

50 freestyle

France’s Florent Manadou, the reigning Olympic champion in the 50 free, posted a 21.55 to remain on top of the world rankings.

He is followed by Bremerton’s Nathan Adrian in the No. 2 spot, in 21.70, a time he set at the Austin Grand Prix in January. Adrian also has the third fastest time of 21.71 from the Mesa Grand Prix in Arizona just last week.

France’s Fred Bousquet followed right behind in 21.73, set at the French championships earlier this month.

South Africa’s Roland Schoeman popped a 21.88 in the prelims of the S.A. Nationals on Saturday.

100 freestyle

Adrian held the No. 1 spot in the world since Jan. 3 when he went 48.11 at the 2nd Mediterranean International Meet (MOM) in Marseille, but  has since been surpassed by Russia’s Vladimir Morozov.

Morozov was the first to go sub-48 in 2013, posting a 47.93 at the Russian National championships on Saturday to win the 100 free.

Nikita Lobintsov‘s time of 48.17 is currently third and Danila Izotov is fourth in 48.18. Izotov bettered his time of from the semis of 48.23.

Australia’s James Magnussen posted a 48.38 at the Australian BHP Billiton in January and William Meynard of France went 48.53 at the French Championships. China’s Zetao Ning posted a 48.60 at the Chinese Nationals while France’s Yannick Agnel went 48.62 at the national championships.

So, really, what does all this mean?

The world championships are still about three months away and the elite swimmers are stepping up their training and prepping for what will be an epic worlds meet in Barcelona.

I’d expect with these times the meet to be on par with London in terms of excitement for fans, although there is usually not as much media hype. That in itself is unfortunate as swimmers consider this meet to be just as important — and maybe a tad bit more — as the Olympics.

 

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