d1 nationals

Yeah and totally overlooked was Subirats at 19.11.

And Grevers anchored in 18.60… Dear god this is a fast meet… Add in Jensen’s 4:09 in the 500

well he might, but he should probably break the mile record at this meet.

Grevers is about to shock some people and win the Im I think.

My money is on Alexandrov (once again showing not only my illinois bias, but my downstate bias as well!)

Or Adam Ritter touches out Grevers and I’m a moron…

Not afraid to admit my inadaquacies…

I am still trying to get over the fact that Grevers just went 1:41 in th IM. 21.4 on the way out in the fly. Jesus.

I cant belive that just happened. Northwestern just broke the most unattainable record in the books. 3:04.40 in teh 400 MR breaks the NCAA record held by 3 olympic champs. wow. That is just amazing.

Yep and they could have been a little faster. Grevers pr is 45.6, he was probably winded from his huge IM. Alexandrov put the boys on his back and went to work 51.2 smokin, and I think a faster split than Hansen ever went. Might we see 51.8 out of him tom?

@JHUBreaststroke06 wrote:

I cant belive that just happened. Northwestern just broke the most unattainable record in the books. 3:04.40 in teh 400 MR breaks the NCAA record held by 3 olympic champs. wow. That is just amazing.

I wouldn’t say most unattainable, afterall the AR is two seconds faster. Not long ago 19.04 seemed unattainable.

Another interesting bit – three Illinois guys in the final of the 200 IM. When was the last Illinois Olympian?

I just got back after attending the D1 finals and since you guys are already talking about it, I might as well give an eye witness report. I apologize for all the random observations, but you don’t need me to tell you the splits.

200 free relay/50 leadoff:
The leadoff leg was the drawl, and what a show!
I think the blocks at the U of Minn pool are very deep but Cielo surprised me. He puts the toes of his back foot on the very back edge of the block. It obviously works for him as he seemed to be the quickest into the water, if not the farthest through the air.
Cielo, BWT, and Subirats really separated themselves from the rest of the field at the turn. I wasn’t expecting Subirats to be so close, so I didn’t feel a record time coming.
I must admit that when I saw 18.69 on the board I made a sound that would have been more appropriate for an ally opp 360 dunk at an And 1 streetball taping.
Obviously Auburn crushed the 2005 Cal record, also set at this pool, by more then a second.

500 free
Jensen dominated this race but it also impressed on me how fast Peter VanderKaay has gone since he was more then a second off the record. Jensen seemed very happy with the time especially when he got back too his teammates. For some reason that struck me. Maybe because he wasn’t afraid to show how pleased he was. Maybe because he seemed to be “just one of the guys” with his team despite everything he has accomplished already. I look forward to watching him in 2008.

200 IM
I talked up the meet at work and my boss ended up coming down. So there we are and I mention that Grevers kind of switched from sprint freestyle to the 200IM and 200 back this year. I tell him that Grevers will be out fast and probably win if he can hold everyone off during the breaststroke. At the 150 I look like a genious with Grevers in the lead. He and Ritter are 4 lanes apart but Grevers is breathing toward Ritters side until the turn. I never felt like Grevers put it in overdrive on the last 25, nor did he once breath to his left to see what Ritter was doing. Maybe he ran out of gas, or maybe Ritter is just a better freestyler then I want to give him credit. In the end they both had great swims and I looked a little foolish.

50 free
Another amazing swim by Cielo. As was mentioned, he was slower on his first 25, but obviously made the time back. The biggest thing I noticed is how good they all are under water. It almost seems too calm and controlled for a 50 free. I wonder if that is one of the reasons guys are dropping this far under 19. It would be interesting to see a tape of Cielo from tonight, side by side with a tape of Tom Jagers 19.05 from 1990. After the race he straddled the lane lines and pumped his fists in the air. I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.
😉
God only knows what’s coming in the 100 on Saturday.

1 meter diving
I’m not a diving guy so forgive my commentary, but it’s certainly fun to watch at this level. I literally saw the board hit the water several times and the height they where getting was amazing. Horner and Frick separated themselves from the field with some incredible 3.0-3.1 difficulty dives that scored 8.5-9.0 in the second and third round I believe. Frick had about a 5 point lead going down to the last dive with Horner diving 7th and Frick 8th. These guys don’t take much time to think and Horner took longer on that dive then anyone had. He nailed it. Frick put up a very nice final dive and I didn’t know which way it would go. When the score went up, Horner was instantly mobbed by Florida State Swimmer.

400 Medley Relay
I put my foot in my mouth again by telling my boss that Northwestern should win but doesn’t really have a shot at the NCAA record held by three Gold Medalists and some guy they picked up off the street to swim freestyle. An amazing swim by those NW guys and well saluted by the crowd.

Final random note: That pool is fast! Has there been a sub 19 50 swum outside of the U of Minnesota pool? Maybe it’s a psychological thing. “Other people have done it here, so why not me?” Given all that, I can’t believe the U of Minn hasn’t found some place to publicly post there pool records. If the fastest time ever in an event was swum in my pool I would want people to know it.

I hope that added a little color to the black and white of the split sheet.
Here’s to more fast times tomorrow.

I tell you I can’t believe how quick Barbic was out last night 19.46 he was actually out faster then Cielo. Of course Cielo split that thing 19.5-21.5. If he anchors Auburn’s 200 MR tonight what are we going to see 18.1?

@swim5599 wrote:

I tell you I can’t believe how quick Barbic was out last night 19.46 he was actually out faster then Cielo. Of course Cielo split that thing 19.5-21.5. If he anchors Auburn’s 200 MR tonight what are we going to see 18.1?

We could see 17! I’m looking forward to seeing him anchor another relay. He passed a guy from Arizona who split 41.9 last night!

17 plus I don’t even want to think about that. That would be even more impressive then the 18.6 he just went.

My contention: the 25 yard pool is too short to contain these guys anymore. A relay team going 4 x <:19 is a ping-pong match not a relay. Simon Burnett going 1:31 or whatever in the 200 free last year is the same thing. For D-I, all championships (conference and nationals), should be in 25m pools (non-Olympic years) and 50m pools (Olympic years).

Cielo was denied the possibility for a world record because the meet was SCY. Though it would not have been recognized as a WR (because there were different nationalities represented on Auburn’s relay), winning relays have the chance to set WR’s.

The ship has sailed for the 25 yard pool. It simply cannot contain D-I swimmers anymore.

I agree. Why swim 25 yards when we are the only country who does it. Sure there are some fast records and such, but times always change. Every Olympic year it is meters, I think it should change to 25 meters for all years. In Olympic years I don’t know about going to 50 meters. Many team can still only train 25 yards. Going to 25 meters is not that big of a jump, but for the teams that do not have 50 meter pools it can be a disavantage.

Look at the D-I teams in the meet. The D-I meet is almost exclusively a “major conferences” meet. As such, I’d say almost every single one of those teams has at least a 25m pool (or convertable pool) to train in. The only ones that come to mind as not having one is Wisconsin. But that is beside the point. These teams can all do it, and there would still be cuts for 25 yard pools.

It is time for D-I to go metric, for good.

ANother ridiculous scy swim Subirats 20.66 backstroke split

Wisconsin does actually have a pool that is 50M the SERF I have never been inside the building or know how much they use it, but they do have a 50M pool to train in.

Given all that, I can’t believe the U of Minn hasn’t found some place to publicly post there pool records. If the fastest time ever in an event was swum in my pool I would want people to know it.

Sad as it is, Dennis Dale won’t post pool records at the U anytime soon. As I’ve heard him tell people when asked about it, he doesn’t want to recruit for other schools. High School kids who come to the U to swim State meets or whatever will see that some guy from Auburn went an 18.69, and go there instead. Smart thinking for recruiting, dick move for those who have achieved greatness.

That is annoying. He could use it as a recruiting tool, and say that this pool is really fast. Just look at the pool records. But really this is a dick move.

Having swam for Dennis Dale and talking to him several time, yes, he likes to do Dick moves.

But what is kind of funny, and kid who he is recruiting has to know how fast some of the people are going from other schools. Not posting a pool record does not change that.

20.66 by Subirats!!!!! That, if correct, is more impressive than anything else so far at the meet, the 18.69 and 200 free relay included…..

That split would beat the best 50 yard backstroke by over half a second…

@RadAGator wrote:

20.66 by Subirats!!!!! That, if correct, is more impressive than anything else so far at the meet, the 18.69 and 200 free relay included…..

That split would beat the best 50 yard backstroke by over half a second…

Neil Walker went 20.8 10 years ago.

And broke his pinkey hitting the wall if I recall…

I think it was 20.79 if I remember it correctly.

200 MR, back half for Auburn

20.04 fly
18.42 free

sick

also, they seem to have caught our fever for DQs in the 200 MR… mostly on freestylers, hmmm, i notice a trend

It looks a lot like the timing system broke for the 100 fly finals…

Nevermind. It did though. Really.

44.57 is ridonculous though!

This was quite a few posts back, but Wisconsin practices many mornings in the SERF. It is not a very good pool, but it is Meters. They are, I believe, in the process of building a D1 caliber competition and training pool.

Alexandrov a new record in the 100 breast 51.5

i just talked to jeremy linn last week

i bet hes happy right about now.

either way, that must have been the race of alexandrov’s life

@RadAGator wrote:

20.66 by Subirats!!!!! That, if correct, is more impressive than anything else so far at the meet, the 18.69 and 200 free relay included…..

That split would beat the best 50 yard backstroke by over half a second…

I went in hoping to see a repeat 20.66 which seems like an almost impossible time to me. No such luck….
20.5x!!!
I’m fairly sure it was 20.50, but my memory of it is already fading a bit. Because of the DQ, I doubt it will be an official time but it is still amazing! No one was even close to him. They only show the 25 yard splits on the board, so I don’t have splits for anyone else from the DQ relays like Alexandrov.

I don’t have time to go through everything so here are a couple of quick thoughts.

100 Fly
Subirats just dominating. It looked like he even jammed himself on the final stroke a little. The Arizona fans do a soccer type chear for him.
“Ooo Aaa OAOAOA Subirats Subirats…” he must be a big soccer fan and looked like he was enjoying himself.

100 breast
Alexandrov from start to finish. For a moment on the 4th length I thought Polyakov was making up ground, but then Alexandrov just pulled away.
He swam out into the pool a bit and enjoyed the moment before letting the ESPN guys corner him.

100 back
Subirats again. His underwaters are incredible. It does make me wonder if he’ll be as good in a 50 meter pool. If you include his 50 back leadoff, has anyone ever had a better night of swimming?

I’m headed to Wisconsin tomorrow, so no first hand report.

One last thing, I thought the medal presenters where a little weak. Natalie Coughlin presented for an event at the womens meet last week. I think most of the guys would have preferred Natalie to the editor of the NCAA rule book.

Okay, one more last thing. They did a big syncro diving show to begin the meet. Similar to the one at the d3 meet here in 1999, but this had some comic relief. There was a little guy in a full body suit doing these crazy dives off the platforms including a full on belly flop off the 10 meter. I’m not positive, but after it was over I believe we recognized the guy as legendary Michigan and Olympic diving coach Dick Kimball. Crazy!

Confirmed with my wife that the 50 back leadoff was 20.50.

@spswimmer wrote:

Wisconsin does actually have a pool that is 50M the SERF I have never been inside the building or know how much they use it, but they do have a 50M pool to train in.

i hear that they swim at the serf 99% of the time and their divers are at the other pool. also, i heard hansen has plans for a brand new pool by 2010, they have the space and most of the money. they dont have the building plans. ive also heard rumors that their new pool might be 40 something meters (25 meters plus diving well) because of limited space, but that would just be stupid.

http://collegeswimming.com/news/2007/mar/17/aubrun-returns-11-alexandrov-dqed-200-breast/

WOW, that’s big news. But 1 major question, why is there controversy over the 100 breast AR?

@silentp wrote:

http://collegeswimming.com/news/2007/mar/17/aubrun-returns-11-alexandrov-dqed-200-breast/

WOW, that’s big news. But 1 major question, why is there controversy over the 100 breast AR?

i dont think he’s an US citizen.

@wickedfoolish wrote:

@silentp wrote:

http://collegeswimming.com/news/2007/mar/17/aubrun-returns-11-alexandrov-dqed-200-breast/

WOW, that’s big news. But 1 major question, why is there controversy over the 100 breast AR?

i dont think he’s an US citizen.

@CollegeSwimming.com wrote:

There was some confusion at yesterday’s finals about Northwestern’s Mike Alexandrovs’ swim in the 100 Breaststroke. The senior’s swim was an apparent American record however there is now some controversy over if the Wildcat senior can actually break an American record. Alexandrov is a dual citizen, and NCAA rules simply state to break an American record you must be an American citizen. The controversy comes in because USA Swimming is claiming that Alexandrov competed for Bulgaria at the 2004 Olympics, 2005 World University Games, and will compete in the 2007 Games in Bangkok, Thailand.

http://www.collegeswimming.com/news/2007/mar/17/alexandrovs-does-not-set-american-record/

I am interested to see what Alexandrov does at the World Championships in a few weeks. He is traditionally not as good LCM, but he also has never gone 51.5.