The official relays have been announced for tonight’s finals session, and no surprise: Allison Schmitt will anchor the American women as they shoot for gold. Their relay will be Missy Franklin, Rebecca Soni, Dana Vollmer, and Allison Schmitt.
There was also no surprise on the American men’s relay, that will be Matt Grevers, Brendan Hansen, Michael Phelps, and Nathan Adrian: a group that includes three individual champions in their respective strokes.
Among notable decision in other relays: the British women will run Gemma Spofforth, Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, Ellen Gandy, and Fran Halsall. There were a few possible moving parts there. The British men, however, had a bit of a surprise: even after a great prelims swim, where they placed 2nd overall behind the Americans, they’ve still decided to put in Michael Jamieson for Craig Benson in this final.
And finally, the German men will anchor with Markus Deibler to replace Marco di Carli, who finally had a good swim with an anchor of the prelims medley.
Regarding Ryan Lochte’s performance:
When many sports (and swimming) analysts were assessing Lochte’s 2012 chances, they overlooked the fact the order of events at the Olympics is much different from that in the World Championships (where he had performed admirably in 2009 & 2011). The grueling 400IM is at the end, and the 200 Back and 200 IM are on different days. Worlds’ event order suits Lochte better than Olympic order has.
That’s definitely true, but his slightly disappointing performance can’t be completely explained by that. His times in 400 FR, 800 FR, 200 free, and 200 back were all slower than he expected. Perhaps his 200 IM time could be explained by event order, but not all of the others. I’m not calling a 5 medal winning performance BAD, but I do wish he had been able to perform times at least equal to last summer, even if those times would not have won. The same could be said of Phelps to some extent also, but he did have faster swims than last summer in a number of events, ironically all those except the ones he won gold!
I think that the 4×100 free relay took its toll on Lochte. I wonder how he really felt about it. Did he feel that he was the best person to anchor the relay. After that failure, everything seem to go downhill from there.
a very smart decision by the US coaches with Schmitt. she is simply to hot right now not to swim her. anyways, i cannot wait to see the Franklin vs Seebohm rematch again! a WR could go down.
Was wonder if they would put Hardy on, but she’s got that 50… Anyways Schmitts been having an awesome meet! Seems like a solid decision!
Can anyone tell me who the swimming announcers are for the streaming feed? I’ve enjoyed their perspective and freshness.
Nicole Livingstone and the other guy?