Thanks for the link, Those are great :-)

Hackett's elbow bend is unreal. Underneath his body, his arm is bent at a 90degree angle, perfectly perpendicular to the bottom of the pool. Jensen is almost as good, but lets his right elbow drop too far behind his hand.

By the way, these guys have strokes that are almost impossible to copy if you haven't been swimming since you were 4 years old. Their kicks are unbelievable, their shoulder strength to keep those arm angles is off the charts. I honestly believe that a triathlete is better off copying the churn of the girls. It takes less time to learn, and requires less drill work to maintain.

Dave, Which girls do you think us sinkers should pay attention to?

Cool clips. It is interesting to see how "big" their kicks are and how much theyflex at the knee while kicking.

Haim

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"Sometimes you need to think INSIDE the box!" -- ME
"Why squirrel hate me?"

I'll have to look at it again. I don't know that you should try to copy exactly anyone's stroke. I just think that it would be easier and more efficient for a triathlete to copy a stroke that has a two beat kick and a moderately fast turnover. Trying to keep up a 6 beat kick, and 9 strokes/25y over the course of 1-2.4 miles seems like a lot of wasted effort.

It would be cool if we had videos of YOUR swimming to look at too. Not that it is realistic to emulate either. In El Paso I only got to see you swim a little bit from the deck, but all of were amazed at how easy you made it look.

Higher cadence/higher stroke rate tends to work better in open water, especially when it's choppy or the surf's up.

As for Manadou, she's got a reputation as a weak 2 beat kicker with her free, but she's also a 1:00 100M backstroker, and you don't go that fast in that stroke without having some power in your kick. So I suspect she's one of those people who can get some real power from an efficient free kick even when it isn't looking like much.