I'm also a swim noob, but shouldn't the French dude have moved to the opposite side of his lane to negate a bit of the wave advantage or does that matter?

Kind of hilarious that NBC's swim expert was calling it a French win with about 60m left, just goes to show how truly mindboggling that comeback was.

I wouldn't miss it either.

The thing I want to know is why Phelps hasn't worn the suit in every race he's raced?

He doesnt' wear the full suit. I think he just wears the bottom of it.

That was a nice post up until the US pic where Berg was featured. Hurry and edit one in with Logan Tom or Glass plz.

why is this?

Megafossil-

I don't really know how Bernard swims his races so I don't know how to answer it. any adjustment on purpose midrace to move away from a laneline costs a ton of time. what he probably should have done was just stay in the middle the whole way- but again I don't know how he plans his races out and wasn't watching when he got closer to the laneline- I was busy yelling OMG LEZAKS COMING BACK ON HIM

wiki says the WR individual was 47.24, eamon sullivan, today. 5 guys broke that?! can that count for the record?

edit: five plus probably more on teams in 3rd 4th & 5th!

I'm going to guess he feels more restricted in it for events like the IM that use different muscle groups on every stroke. Just a guess. generally its just going to be a personal preference type thing.

mosta- an individual swimming record may only be set in a relay on a leadoff leg because they are the only ones who start from a flat start. Every leg after gets a rolling start.

And Bernard did not choke, he was 0;75 second faster than his personnal best and world record.
Lezak was just much faster

Sullivan swam a 47.24 again in the final, guess that guy is pretty consistent down to the hundreth. Some other Aussie swam a 47.25 and an Italian at 47.27 were the fastest of the non top 2.

There was definitely one race where he used the fullbody suit. It was one of the heats. He is in so many though that I don't remember which it was exactly.

Thanks for the explaination apefish.
Is it ideal for all the different kinds of swimming? I think I heard somewhere that some breastswimmers didn't like it.

yeah horizon is right. Bernard's split was damn good. but he couldn't beat Lezak. it basically came down to Lezak tossing in a relay leg over a half second faster than anyone else has ever done.

fwiw- the performance by the French was every bit as amazing.

well... almost.

bjorn- my competitive days were basically done before those suits caught on. I know some swimmers feel they are restrictive in certain strokes.
If you look at the breaststroke you find lots of the half leggings. I think the same is true for backstrokers in general- Matt Grevers only wore the long leggings in his backstroke prelims/semis but wore the full body suit in the relay prelims and in his trials freestyle swims. I swam breaststroke and would have probably found it weird having upper body coverage in a stroke where finding the right feel for riding on the water is sometimes crucial.

Also- I'm pretty sure presenting a uniform look was important to the relay guys despite any individual preferences they may have.

Crazy. I just can't get over he was 0.82 in front before the last 50. I'm shocked Lezak overcame that. And against Bernard of all people.

It's kind of weird, if you break the times down further by 50m splits, Bernard's 1st 50m time was 21.27 which was fastest in the race, only Lezak's 1st 50 of 21.50 was close to it, but then Bernard's 2nd 50m was by far the slowest 50m split of any French or American swimmer. Bernard swam a 25.46 2nd 50 compared to 24.56 for Lezak.

The announcer said that Bernard was 'flat' and 'tightening up'...wtf does that mean?

I would guess it means that he didn't pace himself well enough and burned himself out too much in the 1st 50m of his leg.

announcers use tightening up when they really mean the swimmer can't sustain his previous speed. It's somewhat accurate to say it that way- but swimmers swim races differently.

Bernard for example has more speed than anyone not named Eamon Sullivan while Lezak has a bit more standard approach to a 100 in that he stays strong/builds somewhat thru the race.
Phelps leadoff shouldn't go unnoticed here as it was an American record- and if you look at his splits you'll see he's far stronger on the back half than everyone but goes out slower.

I feel ghey for caring, but the fact that Shawn Johnson only received an 8.8 from the Argentinian for her perfect balance beam performance tilted me... to have a medal decided by "unbiased" judges just seems weird. No recourse, no nothing, just rate and be done.

Olympics do weird things to me. I care about gymnastics.

Also, the end of that relay is seriously one of the sickest things I've ever seen live and I know nothing about swimming, like at all.

"Tightened up" is what John McEnroe says as a commentator when a tennis player misses a shot. It means he missed a shot.

That race was one of the greatest things I have ever watched. Well done. GO USA!!

i'm oddly attracted to her.

(shot of her clothed)


sweet ass!

How did that british chick catch Katie Hoff

this got me pumped up for the usa/cuba match. needless to say, i'm extremely disappointed.