As we move into the 2nd quarter of our 2011 recap, the big news swirled around the buildup to the 2011 World Championships, including some big World Championship Trials swims around the world. And though the collegiate season had already wrapped up, there was still a ton of swirling and coaching fallout from Arizona coach Frank Busch’s decision to become the USA Swimming National Team Director.
April 2011
- April kicked off with some Fantasy Swimming news, as we ran our Sponsor ‘Ship series that compared Speedo-sponsored athletes to Arena-sponsored athletes. Check out who won.
- South African Olympic finalist Suzaan van Biljon announced her comeback in early April, and fought all the way back to a 1:09.64 at the World Championships. We haven’t seen much of her in the latter part of this year (so much that we totally forgot about her when we graded the comebacks), but don’t sleep on her. She’s still young enough to make the drops she needs in order to inflict some damage at the Olympics.
- The Japanese National Championships in April were extremely fast, capped off by Naoya Tomita’s landmark win over Kosuke Kitajima in the 200 breaststroke in 2:08.25. Not only did that mark by the 21-year old top a national hero, it is and was the fastest time ever swum in textile. There were a grand total of 6 National Records broken at the meet.
- On April 11th, former Wisconsin coach Eric Hansen was announced as the new coach at the University of Arizona, taking over for the legendary Frank Busch, who was leaving to become the new USA Swimming National Team Director. In May, Wisconsin would hire Hansen’s replacement in the form of former Arizona coach Whitney Hite. So far, both coaches have thrived in their new environments – Hansen and the Wildcats swam incredibly well at the Texas Invitational; Hite’s got the Wisconsin women firing on all cylinders and has very strong recruiting classes coming in next fall on both the men’s and women’s sides.
- In April, USA Swimming released their Open Water Safety report, including new rules that would govern the sport under their jurisdiction. There were some shots taken at their FINA counterparts across-the-pond, which got a bit heated in both directions, and shortly thereafter FINA would release their own detailed report about the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of Fran Crippen.
- Shortly after the reports, FINA decided that the open water swimming in Shanghai at the World Championships would continue as planned, though many athletes ultimately would pull out of the longest 25km race at that event because the water was too warm for safety. USA Swimming would take a different tact, and move their Open Water National Championships/Worlds qualifying from Ft. Myers, around the coast to Ft. Lauderdale. As a further result of the report, FINA would cancel the 2nd leg of its World Cup Series due to poor water quality.
- Kara Lynn Joyce reversed the “great swim migration” when she went to train with Missy Franklin, Todd Schmitz, and the Colorado Stars in Denver. Along those same lines, another great breaststroker, Mike Alexandrov, went to train with Dave Salo and the Trojans at USC. April was a month to move, as Dagny Knutson left Fullerton to train with Gregg Troy at Florida.
- USA Swimming announced a partnership with Praesidium, a nationally-recognized child protection group, to manage their sexual abuse training program. Chris Desantis of The Swim Brief would give praise to the training videos later in the year, when they were first released to the coaching community.
- On April 22nd, Cal’s Liz Pelton got a very early start on the 2011-2012 recruiting season when she announced that she was committing to defending National Champs Cal. She was probably the top recruit in an awesome nation-wide class, and decided to make her commitment early so that she could focus on her 2012 Olympic training.
- On the final day of April, American swimmer Jessica Hardy got great news that the IOC had cleared her to compete at the London Olympics, in choosing to waive “Rule 45” because her positive test at the 2008 Olympic Trials happened so shortly after the rule was enacted. The rule would later be struck down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, though the British Olympic Committee is still fighting that decision.
May 2011
- With the weight of the pending IOC decision about her Olympic status lifted, Jessica Hardy lit up the Maria Lenk Trophy in Brazil to the tune of a 1:06.1, which at the time was the fastest that she’d ever been in textile.
- In May of 2011, Dara Torres started her rehab work after reconstructive knee surgery with a long course 25.68 at a Florida Masters meet.
- Sprint legend Tom Jager was announced as the new coach at Washington State, as he would begin to turn around a struggling Cougar program.
- Yannick Agnel of France said that he was going to pull out of the 400 free at the World Championships, three months later, because he had missed a week of training with a lung infection. This was one of the more peculiar stories of 2011 – he was out of the 400, then back in, then out, then ultimately swam to a 6th-place finish.
- The inaugural Fran Crippen Open Water Mile race was won by Australian Travis Nederpelt, with Melissa Gorman and Andrew Gemmell winning the 10ikm swims. The stars showed up en masse for the event to honor a fallen friend.
- In one of the more exciting and dramatic swims of the entire year, SwimMAC teammates Cullen Jones and Josh Schneider faced off in a 50 free at the Charlotte UltraSwim as the pair were battling for the last spot on the 2011 World Championships team. Jones would take the victory.
- On May 20th, Jasmine Tosky broke the National High School Record in the 100 fly with a 51.92. That broke Misty Hyman’s 15-year old record in the event by half-a-second. That same weekend, up the coast at the Cali North Sectional meet, Carondelet High School broke the National Record in the 200 medley relay with four underclassmen. Chenault would later break the Independent National Record in the 200 free with a 1:45.12.
- Swimming Australia went a bit off of the beaten path when they announced that Adelaide’s massive, brand-new $100 million Aquatics Centre would host the 2012 Olympic Trials. James Magnussen would make his first impression on the swimming world when he called the decision to move the trials from Sydney “a joke”.
- Japan’s 14-year old Kanako Watanabe moved to 2nd in the World Rankings with a shocking 2:23.90 in the 200 breaststroke at the Japan Open. She didn’t get a chance to better that time at Worlds, but it ended 2011 with her as number three in the world rankings.
- Yet again, Dave Salo and the Trojans added a new Olympian in May. This time, it was former Texas Longhorn Dave Walters, who at the time made 22 Olympians by our count.
- Stevens’ Laura Barrito won the 400 meter hurdles Division III National Championship, which added to her 50 free crown in swimming won earlier in the year.
June 2011
- Former Carmel High School coach Ray Lawrence received a permanent ban from USA Swimming, making him the second-highest profile coach to be added to the list. Because his alleged transgressions occurred prior to the current USA Swimming Code of Conduct was in place, no official reason for his ban was released by USA Swimming.
- Janet Evans began her comeback at a Masters meet in Fullerton, California, and proceeded to break two FINA Masters World Records. Her next race will be at the 2011 Austin Grand Prix in two weeks.
- France’s Camille Muffat continued to build anticipation in the women’s 400 free at the 2012 Olympics when she posted her career-best time at the final stop of the Mare Nostrum.
- On the same day, FINA announced suspensions for both USC All-American diver Harrison Jones, who would leave the program early, and Brazilian swimmer Fabiola Molina. Molina would lose her spot on the Brazilian World Championship squad as a result of the vacated results.
- The same week, FINA would hand Venezuelan swimmer, and former NCAA Champion, Albert Subirats a one-year suspension for failing to properly file his whereabouts for his drug tests. The issue was reportedly that he was giving his whereabouts filings to his national federation, who neglected to forward them on to FINA. The suspension would be lifted in August, though not until after Subirats missed the World Championships.
- The YMCA announced that their 2012 National Championship meet would be held in Greensboro, North Carolina. This is a brand-new facility, and the move came after years of the meet being held in Ft. Lauderdale. This was prompted by the decision to close the grandstand at the ISHOF pool the year before, which created a logistical nightmare for the meet.
- The Simon Cowley-Nick D’Arcy saga continued, as Cowley sued D’Arcy for $750,000 to cover damages from a bar-brawl in which D’Arcy, who was kicked off of the Olympic Team as a result, shattered Cowley’s face.
- Ryan Lochte had his annual freak-accident when he and teammate Marco Loughran got in a scooter accident in Florida. This time, Lochte escaped mostly unharmed, with Loughran taking the brunt of the force, but it did give American swimming fans a brief heart attack.
- Emily Seebohm hit health-hiccup number two of the year, when she was hospitalized with a stomach illness. With all of her health issues, its a wonder that she even finished as high as 4th at the World Championships in the 100 back.
- Elliott Keefer was awarded the second spot in the 200 breaststroke at the World Championships for the Americans, replacing 2008 Olympian Scott Spann. This essentially ended Spann’s career.