Fastest Man in Texas Pick ‘Em Contest: Who Will Win?

It’s just three days until Saturday’s Fastest Man in Texas competition in San Antonio, and things are really heating up.

Jimmy Feigen, 100 freestyle medalist, 2013 World Chamionship (Victor Puig, victorpuig.com)

The big show is the battle between Jimmy Feigen and Nathan Adrian, who are the two best American sprinters at the moment, but there’s plenty of possible spoilers and subplots.

According to meet host Josh Davis, Feigen is on the mend from the stomach flu, but is ready to defend his title. Adrian is out for blood, and money, and especially that belt buckle, and maybe even a little to avenge his falling to Feigen at Worlds in the 100 free.

There’s plenty of Longhorns in the field, and you know that there’s some pride on the line there. Texas-ex’s include Feigen, Dave Walters, Ian Crocker, Dax Hill, and Davis himself.

Josh Schneider, another former NCAA Champion, is going to be jacked up for this meet. That’s what Schneider does: gets jacked up, and he’s representing basically the northern half of the country. Want to know how good Schneider is at meets like this? Consider that in the last two meets we’ve seen with a similar format and with prizes of this magnitude, the Tiburon Sprint championships, Schneider has won them both. He also beat both Feigen and Adrian at the 2010 NCAA Championships in the 50 yard free, so he’s got some history.

Michael Andrew (courtesy of Jae Feinberg)

The darkhorse in the whole thing might be SMU post-grad Mindaugas Sadaukus. He is rumored to have been a 19.7 in practice this week, and best estimates are that a 19.7 won’t be too far from finishing ‘in the money’.

Then there’s the battle-within-the-battle of old versus young. The 41-year old Davis and the 14-year old Michael Andrew. Which one of the two will win? Will Michael Andrew get under 20 seconds and break the National Age Group Record? I’ll guarantee you this much – Andrew won’t be last. He’ll beat at least 5 current or former NCAA athletes. But Davis always shows up big for his own event.

The Schedule

Sat. Nov 9th, 2013
8:30am wake & eat
9:15am Shootout Racers arrive pool (Josh Davis Natatorium, Blossom Athletic Center, 12002 Jones Maltberger Rd., SA, TX 78216)
10:00am Shootout Racers warm up
10:15am practice for 5 minutes in competition pool
10:40am Round 1 prelims of 50 free – 3 heats x 8 swimmers (all advance and get reseeded)
11:20am Round 2 semis of 50 free – 3 heats again (only top 16 advance)
11:55pm consol final of 9-16
12pm high noon 3rd and final round of Shootout!
12:05pm hand out check and interview winner
12:10pm take picture w VIPs and sponsors
12:20pm pictures w/ teams
12:40pm sign and take pictures w/ everyone else
1:30pm Shootout Racers head to private lunch w sponsors & VIPs
3:30pm Fastest Man in Texas over. See you next year!!

Shootout Prizes

1st = $10,001
2nd = $3,000
3rd = $1000
4th – $500

The Lineup

1 Nathan Adrian (Cal & USA) :18.66
2 Jimmy Feigen (UT & USA) :18.84
3 Josh Schneider (Cinc & USA) :18.93
4 David Walters (UT & USA) :19.06
5 Ian Crocker (UT & USA) :19.15
6 Karl Krug (AUB) :19.27
7 Mindaugas Sadauskas (SMU) :19.35
8 Mark Weber (FSU) :19.41
9 Dax Hill (UT & USA) :19.64
10 Josh Davis (UT & USA) :19.77
11 Ryan Koops (SMU) :19.90
12 Corey Nix (TCU) :20.00
13 Cory Bolleter (A&M) :20.12
14 Sasha Padalkin (IWC) :20.23
15 Jason Bergstrom (A&M) :20.40
16 Ryan Wilcox (TCU) :20.46
17 Scott Johnsson (IWC) :20.56
18 Michael Andrew (USA ) :20.62
19 Thiago Parravicini (IWC) :20.70
20 Garrett Hills (TCU) :20.83
21 Evandro Silva (IWC) :20.90
22 Daniel Torres (IWC) :20.99
23 Joshua Lawson (OK) :22.12

PICK ‘EM CONTEST

Ok, there’s two different contests going on here. We’re doing this one old-school: leave your picks in the comments.

Josh Davis Pick ‘Em

Pick Josh’s time. whoever gets closest to Josh’s time gets a copy of Josh Davis’ book “The Goal and the Glory”, his “Everything Swimming Teaching” DVD, and a signed Josh Davis swim cap.

Overall Pick ‘Em

This one has two separate parts. First, pick the times for the top four spots. We will take the absolute value of the distance of each of those selections, and add them together.

Then, pick who you think will finish in each of the top 4 spots. For each swimmer you get right, we’ll take .15 off of your aggregate total. Lowest number wins.

EXAMPLE:

Michael Andrew and Josh Davis will face-off at the 2013 Fastest Man in Texas Shootout. (Image courtesy of MOO BOSC)

If you pick:

1. Nathan Adrian – 19.00
2. Jimmy Feigen – 19.10
3. Josh Schneider – 19.20
4. Josh Davis – 19.50

And the winning order goes:

1. Nathan Adrian – 18.90 (.1 off)
2. Jimmy Feigen – 19.20 (.1 off)
3. Josh Davis – 19.30 (.1 off)
4. Josh Schneider – 19.80 (.3 off)

Then your aggregate time would be .6 seconds off, and we’d take .2 off of that to account for picking the first two places right.

Make sense?

The prize for this one will be a great prize pack that includes:

Brendan Hansen, Josh Davis (& his mother), Jimmy Feigen, Ian Crocker & Aaron Peirsol at the Fastest Man in Texas Shootout (Image courtesy of MOO BOCS)