With an early wakeup call on Saturday morning, many American swimmers who will be competing that day have chosen to sit out the opening ceremonies on Friday evening in London.
Among those who have confirmed that they won’t walk at the Olympic stadium include young superstar Missy Franklin, who will be a part of the 400 free relay on Saturday. Other big names who have to race Saturday morning, and therefore will likely sit out, include Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Dana Vollmer, and Brendan Hansen.
On Friday, the British coaching staff revealed that their entire swim team will sit out of the opening ceremonies, even as the host nation. That includes open water swimmer Keri-Anne Payne, though she won’t race until August 9th; for solidarity, the whole team has decided to sit out together
The move is not a surprise, as doing laps around a track late the evening before, with the ceremony slated to begin at 9PM local time.
18 sports begin competition on Saturday, but only 7 will have medal finals on that day. Swimming leads the way with 4 medal finals on the first day of competition (swimming gives out more medals than any sport aside from track & field). Other sports with finals competition on day 1 are Archery, Weightlifting, Judo, Fencing, Cycling, and shooting.
Speaking of Franklin, looks like Cal, USC and Georgia top her list for college.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/olympics/la-sp-on-missy-franklin-cal-usc-georgia-olympic-swimming-united-states-20120726,0,4225866.story
please don’t go to CAL Missy!–NCAAs won’t even be worth watching (whether not CAL lands BR talent)
if Stanford can get a great new coach like Bultman–they’ll be back on the block