With all due respect and regard to Missy Franklin’s 1:55.06 200 freestyle to lead off the relay, which has been generating a ton of buzz in-and-of itself, the swim of day 5 at the 2011 FINA World Aquatics Championships goes to Ryan Lochte and his 200 IM World Record.
In his acceptance speech for this award, Lochte ought give due credit to Michael Phelps, without whom I’m not sure Lochte would’ve cleared this record.
Ryan Lochte went out very well in this race to hang with Phelps on the butterfly leg, which is not as unusual as it might sound. On the backstroke, Lochte was notably better, which again is pretty well expected. Lochte had an absolutely outstanding breaststroke leg split of 33.03; amongst the top 50 times ever in this event, only two splits by breaststroker Eric Shanteau have ever been faster than that, which puts Lochte in elite company.
But the real difference maker was the freestyle. Lochte came home in a split of 27.49, which aside from the 2008 Olympic Trials (where his time was over a second slower than this one, so clearly a different overall race strategy) is faster than he’s ever closed a 200 IM. This could be because of two factors, though it’s likely some combination of both.
One, his level of training with Gregg Troy has gone through the roof. He has been so committed to the Troy middle-distance program that doesn’t seem to allow for many “rest days” in season that the day he returned from winning 5 gold medals in Dubai, he was back in the water training.
Second, Lochte’s breaststroke has not only gotten faster in the past year, but more importantly it’s become much more efficient. This improved efficiency has allowed him to put more of his breaststroke kick on his legs and save a lot of his arms for the final 50 freestyle, and that’s where he took this record down. Here’s the split breakdown:
2009: 24.72 | 28.48 | 33.08 | 27.82 = 1:54.10
2011: 24.89 | 28.59 | 33.03 | 27.49 = 1:54.00
One of the supposed effects of the polyurethane suits was that the extra bouyancy they provided was supposed to allow swimmers to finish races harder, and as you can see he was able to finish way harder in 2011 in a jammer.
And with such slim margins between himself and the 2009 version of him, Mr. Phelps deserves some microm of credit, because without his friendly rival there challenging him, Lochte might not have taken that one last hard stroke to polish off this record, because nobody else in the world is close to Lochte right now.
If you didn’t watch the race, click here to watch the entire thing on Universal Sports and check out the underwater shots beginning at about the 2:30 mark. That’s a tight finish!
Lochte won the race off the start and kickout. Phelps fly was noticeably faster above water but he spent the whole first 50 catching Lochte. If MP’s first 15 is faster he gets a little more wiggle room for the back and breast and thats a different race. He had his biggest advantage neutralized from the beep.