Just as I predicted, Aaron Peirsol lost the 200 backstroke to Ryan Lochte by .39 seconds. In swimming, .39 seconds is pretty substantial. Peirsol has been dethroned as the king of backstroke, a title which he's held for seven years. Maybe dethroned is the wrong word, since he does still hold the world record in the 100 backstroke. Brought down quite a few notches would be more accurate.
Watching Peirsol is always exciting because you never know what's going to happen. Unlike Michael Phelps, who often beats his competition by full seconds, Peirsol never looks like he's going to win until the last ten meters or until he actually touches the wall. As many commentators have stated, 'he just has a knack of putting his hand on the wall first'. Having watched him at the US Nationals and in Athens, you wonder how he does it. Unfortunately, waiting until the last ten meters is not a foolproof method.
Watching the 100M backstroke was pretty amazing because Peirsol had a subpar start, an average turn, and still managed to win by more than half a second. One wonders what he can do if he actually nailed his start and had a better kick off his turn. For Aaron, his advantage is in pure swimming. His strokes are beautiful, and he can power past other swimmers. It's amazing how many tight races he's managed to win with subpar starts and insomniatic turns. Peirsol is still one of the best backstrokers in history, if not the best backstroker ever. However, that might change now that Lochte is making huge strides in his backstroke.
Lochte beat Peirsol in the 200 backstroke at the 2007 Worlds, the first time in seven years that Peirsol had lost a backstroke event in an international competition. That's still impressive. What's not so impressive is that the 200 backstroke is (was) widely considered to be Peirsol's best event. He was always more concerned about the 100 backstroke because mistakes such as a slow start and sluggish turns are much more costly at such a short distance. I would say that the 100 is his signature stroke. Although I'm not inside his head, there have been suggestions that he became much too complacent in the 200 backstroke because the field with the exception of Lochte is far less competitive than the 100 backstroke. If he's able to put so much effort into the 100 backstroke, why can't he put more effort into the 200? Maybe Peirsol choked in the 200. I don't really know. Also, for someone who trains more than three hours a day, couldn't he have worked more on his starts and his turns?
Watching Phelps, his huge advantage is on his turns. Granted, his strokes are near perfect, but it's his dolphin kicks that give him body-length leads on his competitors. Lochte also has very good turns. Maybe I don't have the right to comment, since I can't swim fast enough to participate in the Olympics. However, turns are very tiring and can really drag, especially near the end of the race when fatigue becomes a major factor.
On the subject of turns, I saw a clip of the 2004 Athens 200 backstroke race, where Peirsol won by a hefty 2+ seconds, then got disqualified, then was reinstated as the gold medalist. The judge disqualified him on the last turn. The entire business was very odd since the disqualification was thrown out on the grounds that it wasn't stated in the working language of FINA, or English. From what I could gather, the complaint was that Peirsol had flipped onto his stomach too soon. Since all of his turns are pretty slow, I wasn't sure what was different about this one except that it was even slower than usual. It was a huge controversy because the lane judge was French, Peirsol had made remarks earlier that Kitojima should have been disqualified for illegal dolphin kicks in breaststroke, and on and on. After the mess, the British protested vehemently because their swimmer would've been bumped up from fourth to third and thus in medal standings. It's hard to argue that Sweetman, the British coach, was completely devoid of self interest since the British squad performed more than abysmally that year. This is exactly what the Olympics shouldn't be about, a mish-mash of incompetence, self-interest, and politics. For God's sake, why are there no underwater cameras and instant replays in swimming? I will say that in club swimming, disqualification for gliding on the stomach for the backstroke turn runs rampant. It's happened to my team before. I suppose that if 12 year olds can get disqualified, so can Olympic athletes.
Off the subject of swimming, Peirsol seems like an all-around nice guy from his interviews. He's good friends with Marcus Rogen, who had a gold medal in the 200 back for all of fifteen minutes and openly supported Peirsol, stating that Peirsol is always honest, and won the race. Peirsol's also good friends with Brendan Hansen, who came in second to Kitojima in the breaststroke.
I don't even know why I should care so much. I guess Peirsol appeals to me because backstroke was my event. Unlike him, I peaked at age 8 when I won the Central Jersey championships in the 25 back. Also, I tend to scrape by as well, except that it only works for me 8% of the time, not 98% of the time. It's still nice to follow swimmers like Peirsol, Phelps, and Lochte and to know enough about the sport to appreciate the extreme difficulty in what they do. They've even inspired me to go to the pool twice this week! I know that I'm not an Olympic athlete. I'm not even a moderately fast swimmer. However, I do wish that I hadn't taken so many breaks in swimming when I was younger. There are certain things that you learn in doing sports that can't be learned anywhere else. I've decided that my future kids can skip the math competitions, but they can't skip their swim meets.
The Olympics are inspiring. It's true that all the athletes have immeasurable amounts of natural talent, but they have to train so hard both physically and mentally. I have been knocking Aaron Peirsol for most of this post, but he has trained hard to be the undisputed backstroke champion for seven years. It's pretty extraordinary. The entire US men's swim team is extraordinary. They're all seasoned veterans and have gone through so much. These few days have been such an inspiration to me. I want to work harder and be a better person. At the end of the day, I want to know that I've lived my life proudly, to have done good for others, and to be satisfied with my work.
No comments:
Post a Comment