Trials Review

Well our meet is done. Kind of sad really. With all the exposure our sport has had these last 8 days, it makes you wish we had trials every year. For us we had some good swims & some swims we wish we could do again. But we as a team looked great and our athletes were true champions in my mind. I really enjoyed the experience with them.

Our best finish was obviously Bryan's 50m Fr. 22.13 tied for 7th; I believe that's a team record ;). Watching him prepare for his races was a learning experience. I remember him as an 8 year old summer league swimmer, skinny little thing. But even then he had a drive about him that you new he could do some great things. Its a pity Gary Hall Jnr. was also in the final. I think they showed to much of him and "his cape" (LOL). I will also remember the way Erin & Bean looked when they were paraded out in front of 8-9,000 people. I was very proud of them and I know you all would have been too.

Enough of us. Here are some other things I also observed.

Watching Peter Marshall (Dynamo/Stanford) swim his last race in the 100 Bk. He was 3rd in 2004; but unfortunately he didn't make it out of the Semi-Finals this time. He stood at the pools exit and shook everyone of his competitors hand as they went to warm down. Don't see that in to many other sports.

Hayley McGregor (Texas) - the morning after she got 3rd in the 100 Bk (after she set the World Record the day before) - was at the pool 7am getting ready for her 200 Bk. You couldn't tell that she was disappointed, she was there preparing for the next event. Unfortunately she got 3rd in that one too.

Behind the scenes: When you walked into the building and into the surrounding's behind the main pool. It was like being back stage at a rock concert. There were so many people behind the scenes running this meet. There were at least 80 journalists from around the world doing TV interviews. As soon as the swimmer finished a race they would walk down the exit and right in front of the camera's. You had physiologists taking blood samples from swimmers to determine their lactate values. You had swimmers wearing heart rate monitors while warming down. You had massage and physical therapists working on athletes & coaches. You had an area for the swimmers to relax, although not much relaxing went on there as they had Guitar Hero & a PlayStation also. Computers - everywhere. The warm down pool was an "exact" replica of the competition pool, plus a 6 lane 25m pool attached to it. There was food all day long, water everywhere and volunteers that were so pleasant and helpful. I could go on and mention the aqua zone and seeing all the past Olympians, but I won't.

I can't wait for 2012. I know we will have more swimmers their than this time. Maybe we can put someone on that team. We were only 0.48 of a second away from doing it this time.