He looks like a mix between Sloth from The Goonies and The Incredible HULK....

HE YOU GUUUYYYYYS!

Damn fast too...

two or three records in the last 25+ years. Bousquet trained in the states from what I remember.

listen, I'm not saying he dopes or not. I don't know...
but your reasoning is bogus...
But I'll use it to justify why statistically Greg and Lance must have doped since before them, no american ever won the Tour...

You are correct on both points... many people in Holland speak Dutch, English, French and German, the languages of the countries that surround them... but if you think about it, it's out of necessity for commerce. Who's going to learn Dutch, a language spoken by only around 20 million people? The same probably goes for the Danes, Swedes, Norwegian and Finns.

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http://irondad06.blogspot.com/

http://irondad.blogspot.com/

Bousquet got fast at Auburn, and if there was systematic doping at Auburn the rumor mill would have picked up on it long, long ago.

um, my girlfriend from france immediately told me that her and people she knows in france who do follow swimming think that manaudou is doping when i showed her some videos of some world record swims.

I agree, however many times the old adage a picture says a 1000 words holds true. If it looks like doping (see photo), improves like doping http://www.swimrankings.net/...mp;athleteId=1528989, most likely there is doping involved.

Athletes that come out of the MOP elites to all of a sudden win, and smash records are always looked at closely. Reminds me of Michele Smith, Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou(greek sprinters), and Johann Mühlegg( German turned Spainish cross country skiier). All I am saying is looking at his pictures and seeing his evolution amoung the elite level swimmers, his progression and appearance is quite abnormal. You can do the math from there.

    With that body he could break his 100 meter record,and win the "MR Olympia" contest all in the same year. ;-)

I said this guy looks very superhuman and he seems to be a statistical anomaly from the French swimming program. How did you deduce that I am accusing Auburn of systematic doping?

this paragraph from the timesonline, really says it all


“I had an excellent start . . . then I thought I had to exploit my fantastic shape here in Eindhoven and put all my power on at 35 metres,” he said. If the Frenchman’s physique — 7 kilogrammes (15lb 4oz) of visible muscle added in little more than a year — has helped to catapult him from a man incapable of making the World Championships final a year ago to one who has destroyed world-class rivals around him here, then the suit he is wearing is just as evident. "


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/...t/article3607934.ece

I am sure the new suit has help plenty but come on

How'd you deduce that I deduced that you'd accuse....

Just snarking a little bit at Auburn actually there. They've got a reputation for having some of their other foreign recruits pretty much only show up on campus just long enough for their teams to win at NCAAs. (There have been times when the rumor mill said Cesar Cielo was around on a 90 day tourist visa instead of a student visa since he'd be in Brazil from spring until January 1, and then he's be back in the States just long enough for SECs, NCAAs, and to finish Auburn's academic minimum for the semester)

you got that right. This is exactly what Mr. Olympia's muscles would look like if he also swam 12K per day. What is up with this guys small head, are the French on to a new type of hormone with weird side effects?

The guys head is in proportion. The picture is of him with every muscle clenched (Which will swell them) and a very large barrel chest. Take a look at other pictures of him (Google image), and while he looks muscular, it's not like the picture above. It's just a weird picture.

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

Ha.
You're right, but this is the best picture I could find of Champion. Great movie, BTW.

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Hrm...nose prosthetics as the next aero device?

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

Looks like we now have an organized doping program because there were quite a few head turning performances at the Nationals this week (except Manaudou who did poorly, by her standards)...the 4x100m relay is nearly as strong as the Aussie relay...

I thought someone had posted a pic from the UFC.

While Fred Bousquet's a talented head case who has shown flashes of utter brilliance at times over the years and who can legitimately be seen as a guy finally pulling it all together in a big time meet outside of NCAAs, both Leveaux and Bernard don't fit in what's considered to be a normal time progression in sprint events, even when you control for what improvement new suit technology seems to bring.

I thought they were only good at running ;-)

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"your horse is too high" - tigerchik

So true, I've been to the UK, France, and Italy, and parents have been to Spain and Portugal. If you just make an attempt to speak their language (to the average person on the street--even in small rural towns) almost everyone, especially those who are in their 30's or younger, can speak English remarkably well.

The more culturally literate you are, the more accomodating people are.

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Seriously, don't take me too seriously.

All I have to say is wait til june 29-july 6 (US olympic trials). I would put money down that half the LC world records on the books go down at that meet, not including relays. Yeah the new suits do help some, but mostly it's the training that these guys have been putting in for years, and even more intensely over the past 18 months. I would bet if you looked back at early 2004, 2000, 1996 etc you would see almost as many records fall in the meets before the olympics.

Leveaux was a 200m specialist who recently turned to 50m...so of course, it will not look like the typical evolution of swimmers over 50-100.
He went from 1.48.80 in 2004 to 1.46.54 last week. Not an unusal progression at all for a 22yo swimmer. If he were doping, and had seem dramatic changes over 50m because of doping, then it's likely that the same would have been seen over 200m.

For Benard, on the other hand, it's true that the progression is very unusal.

Actually, I think also that many of the records are going to fall at the US trials, but not because athletes are much better, mostly because the new suits does help a lot (at this level).