And finally, the World Championships were here. This 3rd quarter, from July through September, was jam-packed with huge competition. Besides Worlds, there were several big National Championship meets (US, Chinese); the World University Games, and the Youth World Championships.
The quarter was also filled with plenty of goats from hugely-controversial figures, including Brazil’s Cesar Cielo and Australia’s Kenrick Monk.
It was also the beginning of both the college swimming season as well as the college recruiting season. Both brought their own excitement.
July 2011
- July started with a bombshell as Cesar Cielo revealed on his blog that he, Henrique Barbosa, Vinicius Waked, and Nicholas Santos were nailed with a positive test for the banned diuretic furosemide, which can be used by steroid-takers to dilute the concentration of a banned substance in their urine prior to a drug test. The claim was that the lab mishandled Cielo’s caffeine supplements (that he shared with his Brazilian countrymates) at the Maria Lenk Trophy earlier in the year, though the lab would later deny it (maybe?). FINA would ask for an emergency appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to debate the Brazilian federation’s decision to issue the four only warnings, which they were granted. The details of the whole situation are still a bit clouded to the general public, but ultimately the decision to simply vacate the results from the meet at which the positive tests happened were upheld for three: Cielo, Barbosa, and Santos. Waked was given a one year suspension, as this was the second time he’d been hit with a positive test.
- The overall reaction from other athletes was overwhelmingly (though not unanimously) negative at the decision to not suspend him. Cielo would go on to win World Championship gold medals in both the 50 fly and the 50 free.
- Meanwhile, in New Zealand, American Olympian Rhi Jeffrey began competing again. She also moved in with her 17-year old boyfriend, 7-years her younger, in a landmark legal case where he legally emancipated himself from his parents, who had refused to sign his swimming consent form.
- At the Canada Cup, in his final pre-World Championships meet, Michael Phelps posted the fastest pre-Shanghai 100 fly swim in the world. So much for his lack of training giving the rest of the world a chance in the butterfly events.
- The European Junior Championships in early July gave a great introduction to the future stars of the world. This included the first introduction of Denmark’s Mie Nielsen, and strong performances from the young French and British swimmers.
- The NCAA officially eliminated all false-start recalls, and Dave Salo received a 5-year contract extension in July, as the college swimming world simmered before the recruiting-races really began to boil in August.
- Aside from a few interesting news tidbits here-and-there, the World Championships sucked in all of the attention in July. James Magnussen, who was leading the world in the 100 free before the meet, was hospitalized with pneumonia just two weeks prior to the meet. This would lead to a ruined taper (which he rode to a 100 free World Championship and textile-best swim).
- France’s Laure Manaudou made a strong return at the Georgia Sectional meet. She had an awesome weekend-long battle with Georgia swimmer Megan Romano in what was an overall quite-successful comeback.
- As festivities began in Shanghai, FINA named Kazan, Russia and Guadalajara, Mexico as the host sites for the 2015 and 2017 World Championships.
- One of the tougher stories to swallow before the Olympics was that of Russia’s Anastasia Chaun, who was forced to pull out after suffering a serious medical reaction from an allegedly-botched blood draw during a drug test. The Russian anti-doping agency, not surprisingly, denied responsibility.
- Americans Alex Meyer and Haley Anderson pulled out of the 25km open water swim, citing unsafe water temperatures. Despite FINA moving the race an hour earlier than originally planned to try and catch cooler conditions, many athletes struggled with the heat and had to pull out of the race early.
- On July 23rd, the year’s biggest meet finally kicked off. It’s hard to boil down such a fast meet into a few highlights, but among the best swims were Dana Vollmers American Record and victory in the 100 fly; an incredible textile-best from 15-year old Shiwen Ye in the 200 IM; an emotional win for Alexander Dale Oen in the 100 breaststroke after tragedy in his home country; and World Records from both Ryan Lochte and Sun Yang.
- Right after Worlds ended, we had some stat-head fun with the results. Check out what we found here.
August 2011
- The American swimmers had to rush home and prepare for the USA Swimming National Championships; especially those who were trying to maintain eligibility for the extra pro-swimmer stipend. Most of the Worlds team members swam very fatigued-like, but Brendan Hansen, who wasn’t in Shanghai, made his comeback statement with a sweep of the breaststrokes. That included a 1:00.17 in the 100 breaststroke that was the fastest by an American in 2011.
- The youngest member of the American squad in Shanghai bounced back quite well. That includes a National Age Group record in the 100 back. In the men’s 100 back, Jack Conger and Ryan Murphy traded NAG Records as well.
- Nathan Adrian, who missed the medal-stands in Shanghai individually, actually swam a touch faster at Nationals in the 50 free with a 21.84.
- Here’s a recap of a few of the great swims from Nationals that weren’t quite as obvious.
- We first found out in August that former NCAA Champion Andrew Gemmell, who redshirted his second year at Georgia, would return to college competition for the 2011-2012 season.
- Lia Neal’s stock sky-rocketed at US Junior Nationals when she broke the Meet Record in the 200 free in 1:58.2. Up until that point in her career, she’d been strictly a sprinter. She’s now a contender for the 2012 Olympic team.
- The Americans and New Zealanders both swam very well at the 2011 World Universty Games in Shenzen, China. China’s Yi Tang was also impressive by setting a Meet Record in the 100 free.
- The World Youth Championships in Lima, Peru were by far the best yet, with over two-thirds of the Meet records going down.
- Australia’s Geoff Huegill completed a major turnaround not only in his swimming, but in his life, when he announced that he and his wife were expecting their first child.
- Two high-profile swimmers found new coaches after World Championships disappointments (and both swimmers are becoming notorious coach-changers). Italy’s Federica Pellegrini, coming off of a 200-400 double gold medal, chose to work with Philippe Lucas, the former coach of rival Laure Manaudou; and Olympic Finalist Tao Li of Singapore was also again searching for a new training regiment. Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry also announced in August that she would move to train in Monaco.
- Ian Thorpe continued working on turning himself into a sprinter in Switzerland.
- Venezuela’s Albert Subirats had his prior suspension for failing to properly file his Whereabouts with drug-testers lifted by the CAS.
- Trinidad & Tobago’s George Bovell, a 2004 Olympic medalist, got in a bad car accident in his home country. He would be hospitalized and miss significant training time, but has since made a full recovery and returned to the water.
- Texas A&M began the college realignment chaos by announcing that they would be moving to the SEC beginning next season. They will be joined by fellow Big 12 members Missouri.
- NBAC hired Parkland Aquatic head coach Eric Posegay, who brought teenage sensation Gillian Ryan along with him to Baltimore.
September 2011
- USA Swimming announced their 2011-2012 National Team and Junior National Team rosters. Making one of these squads takes on an extra significance in a pre-Olympic year, where the National Team support staff really steps up their involvement and enthusiasm.
- Elliott Keefer left Ohio State to begin his professional career with SwimMAC Carolina.
- Michael Phelps signed an endorsement deal with Head & Shoulders.
- Women’s #6 recruit Lindsey McKnight made an early verbal to swim for Florida.
- The 2011-2012 NCAA season began, fittingly, with Stanford winning over Cententary. This was the introduction of the nation to the Stanford freshman class that was one of the most hyped in history.
- USA Swimming makes a momentous decision by limiting entries to the 2012 U.S. Open to long course meters only (no more converted times). This was a response to a huge increase in participation at these year-end meets, as well as widespread frustration with college swimmers who would earn qualifying times in yards, and then stop training in the long course season.
- Anthony Ervin first appeared in the previous quarter’s drug testing pool in September, which indicated that he was making a comeback to competitive swimming.
- The Chinese National Team swam awesomely at their National Championship meet. That included an Asian Record from Wang Shun in the 400 IM, and an awesome 200 free from Sun Yang in the 200 free. Yang really finished one of the better distance-seasons that we’ve ever seen at this meet.
- The Pitt swim team is moving from the Big East to the ACC (along with Syracuse, who cut their team). Meanwhile, Houston joined the Big East.
- Emily Brunemann swam very well and picked up some cash from World Cup stops in both China and in Hong Kong. The Germans, however, took home even more cash by winning the big series prizes – Thomas Lurz and Angela Maurer took home $20,000 each for the series victories.
- In her second arrest of the year, Florida’s Lily Ramirez was cut from the team after being arrested for possession of cocaine following a fight at a DJ Tiesto concert.
- Kenrick Monk lied when he told police that he was intentionally hit by a car on the way to practice, shattering his elbow. It turns out, he was actually hurt falling off of his skateboard. In November, police would be outraged when all charges against Monk for falsifying a police report were dropped following involvement of Swimming Australia.