Yep. I’ll disagree about diving though- my wife was a diver, so without it I don’t know where my life would be ;)

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

Ha! Still waiting for the NCAA track & gymnastics championship. Other than water (and generally ripped bodies.. lol) what do they share?

Kidding of course. Not serious (but serious).

Monty and Jason,

Thanks for the useful info. Didn't realize there are "seasons" for LC and SC. And I have to say I am surprised most
collegiate swimming at high levels in done in SCY. I learned to swim outside the USA and the only pools I have ever seen are LCM and SCM. On the occasional swim when back in 'merica I will end up in a SCY pool. I remember one time someone referring to it as a "junior olympic pool" Anyhow....

And I second the other poster who mentioned something about "big guys" in a small pool. Seems like a quarter of the race is underwater!

Lastly it totally makes sense that these are some of the deepest meets. Only after getting outside of the USA for a while can you get an idea of the monster that is USA Swimming. My kids American School here in Dubai has up the USA Swimming motivational timesheet. Dumbfounding speed.

Pretty much everyone swims a SC and a LC season just that the US has their SC season in yards while the rest of the world is in metres. At that level, it’s still big guys in a small pool, regardless of whether it’s M or Y. If you watch some of the short course World Cup meets or especially SC Worlds it’s crazy how fast they are.

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Looks like the hype race for today is the 200 breast. Finnerty vs Seliskar! And freshman Reece Whitley as an outside threat. Should be an awesome race.

Is it too early to just give the 100 free to Dean?

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Hey Aaron, the thing here is that most the pools built in the past 30 years are LCM, but they are SCY wide. And we have developed the bulkhead to even shorten the length of a 50 meter pool to SCY, and then you can warm up going the perpendicular in a warm up pool, also in SCY.

Like Jason said, there are seasons for short and long course, just the rest of the world swims SCM, hardly any real difference, one stroke per lap..

And the big guys in a little pool is just an illusion really. Have you ever watched an NBA game live? I watched the guy win the 500 and he was taking 12 strokes per lap, so not a bunch less than the rest of us who swam. And believe me, I do not feel like the pool is way too short!! (-; It is just a tiny bit different type of swimming, harder actually as you do not get to breath as much as LCM. It is faster off the walls, but it also hurts more because you use bigger muscles with less O2..

I'd say he's not really in shape at all, given what he did at 2014 Short Course Nationals:

https://www.usms.org/...etID=20140501SCSC-1Y

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Dean Farris and the Harvard team was finishing up a taper workout before the Masters meet at Harvard last weekend and the guy is super smooth in the water. decidedly smoother than the other guys (who were were also NCAA qualifiers, so no slouches). He’s really tall (looked it up later 6’ 7”) and warmed down wearing those huge yellow paddles and made the 25 yard short course pool look like a hotel pool. Interestingly he wasn’t doing any backstroke for the 20 minutes or so we waited for them to finish. When Masters warm up started at 8:00AM they went over to the diving well swam for another 10 minutes. Not much sprinting going on, but he clearly hit his taper right.

Yeah, it's been a real break through meet for Farris. Wondering at this point if he'll be back at Harvard next year or take a "Gap Year" and focus on training for 2020 Olympic Trials. He's won an individual title already, will probably win another this evening. Given that he smashed the NCAA and American Record in the 200 free with his relay lead-off swim, I really don't think he'll feel like he has to come back and prove anything in that individual event.

At this point, he looks like a shoe-in for the 4x200 free relay at Tokyo, which is all but guaranteed to medal, and most like will be a favorite for gold. But I think he's got a shot to medal in the individual 200 free. He's got a shot at making the 4x100 free relay, too, which is another all-but-certain medal, probably gold. 100 and 200 back are a little more of a stretch, but not out of the question.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

I'd say he's not really in shape at all, given what he did at 2014 Short Course Nationals: //

No doubt, but the 5 years from 48 to 53 can be cruel sometimes. Those are two entirely different bodies you have in that 5 year stretch. At 48 you are still holding onto most of your former glory, but distanced from it. At 53 it is way back in the rear view mirror, and you have entered a whole new chapter in sports. Other things can exacerbate those years too, but in general they are just unforgiving at their best..

Seliskar for swimmer of the meet? I think Farris gets performance of the meet for that 2free.

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Seliskar for swimmer of the meet? I think Farris gets performance of the meet for that 2free. //

A case for both can be made, I would flip your picks around though. The ghost of Caleb was certainly at the meet, and Farris is the only one to erase one of those records. IF Andrew had gone 2/100ths faster in the 200IM, then I would have leaned his way. But really, a guy from Harvard dominates the meet? Gotta go a long way back to find that comparison, and he single handily got his team in the top 10, beating Stanford, USC and a host of other swimming powers of the past couple decades.. I just wish he was a little more durable, like Caleb. If he transitions to LCM like he should, he will be good for a couple events and a couple relays by 2020 I would say, while Caleb goes for 9+!!!!!

https://swimswam.com/...swimmer-of-the-year/

What Dressel mark did Farris erase? The 2free was owned by Haas, and Pieroni was the first under the 1:30 barrier. Dressel has never been sub 1:30, iirc.

Dean got 2 wins but Seliskar got 3 and was a huge part of cal getting the title

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Ya, I forgot that Caleb did not get to swim the 200 free, or the 100 breast. Both events that he would have certainly put up big records in. That 50 flat he did untapered and and shaved in the breast was eye opening for what is possible. I think he would have gone 49 low if given the chance. And no doubt if he got to swim a rested 200 free, we would be looking at 1;28+'s now as the standard.

But moving on, I still think putting Harvard in the top 10 vs just piling on more points in a kind of blowout is the bigger deal. It was good to see Cal take over that top spot though, Texas was the perennial lock for sure, and I presume was the big favorite pre meet once again..

If there can be 1 knock on Dean Farris, and really how can there be, his underwaters powered him to his victories. He was not the fastest on top of the water swimmer in either event. Makes me wonder what his prospects are for LCM. He was getting caught on the swim portion of each 25 in the 100's. But in college SCY, underwaters are a big part of racing.

So Seliskar got it, and I would imagine in the eyes of the voters, it simply came down to 3 wins > 2 wins. Farris though took out a huge record, and also powered Harvard into great relay positions and an incredible top 10 finish. Hard to take away anything from either of them, they're both just so strong.

Whoever posted the link to the past NCAA results, thanks.. I got lost looking at those yesterday. What I find amazing is that there were individuals who were seriously fast 20, 30 years ago, but the depth today is out of this world. And that's even with the decline of boys and mens swimming at the AG level. Have to think a lot of that is due to the vast expanse of knowledge all good programs have available them today for coaching and training methods. Also, the AG approach to becoming good at all strokes - the 200 free/200 IM target philosophy.

My favorite moment this year was John Shebat taking the 200 back in his final individual event as a collegiate swimmer. He has finished second something like four times previously in the 100 and 200 back. He finally won this year. The shots of Shebat on the podium were incredible, it meant so much to him. To make it even better, Eddie Reese then put him in the 4x100 free. Shebat said that he hadn't swam that relay since high school. Dude goes out an drops a 41.6 split, Texas wins again. What a story.

I work on the formula that you always move one event down from your best race short course to long course.

So if 100 SCY is your event, the 50 in LCM will be your best.

So in Dean's case, I think his best LC event will be the 100 free, not the 200 free.

I like his chances of stretching his 200SCY speed to 200LCM better than his chances of upsetting both Dressel and Adrian in the 100.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

There’s a lot of good 100 guys right now. Adrian, Dressel are obviously the top 2, but not far behind you’ve got Pieroni, Held, Haas on a good day, and by then maybe Michael Andrew will be able to stretch his 50 speed to a 100. Plus others I’m not thinking of. I think Farris’ best shot is gonna be in the 2free and maybe the 100 back. There Murphy and then a little gap to the rest. I love Grevers but I think he’ll be too old. (Prove me wrong, please!!!!)

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He has Haas and Pieroni to worry about at either distance. Seliskar was magic in the 200 this past summer, and Dwyer's always a threat, but, beyond those 4, Farris would seem to have the field of 200 contenders well covered at the moment. Like you, I believe there's more depth in the 100 free, and it's more of a crap shoot to even get a relay spot. The difference between being getting a 2nd at Olympic Trials (and qualifying to swim the individual event plus at least one and maybe as many as 3 relays), and 7th, where you're completely out, be ~0.25 seconds.

As for Michael Andrew, I just don't see him as any kind of threat to Dean in the 100 Free. I can't, for the life of me, understand how he can be so pedestrian in that event, given his 50 free speed, and his emerging excellence at all 3 stroke 100's. Honestly, he presents a far bigger challenge to Farris in the 100 back than the 100 free.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

I haven’t seen any results for Dwyer recently, although I could have missed them. I thought he retired / got injured?

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Not officially retired - his IG account still shows him at the pool sometimes, but it seems he's more interested in globetrotting with his Model GF and doing endorsements. Good for him.

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

At the Richmond PSS (going on now) Dressel won the 200 free in a PB (1:47 and change), and he handily won the 100 fly with a ridiculous back half (24.99, 27.09, just a 2sec fade in the second 50, which includes the turn and doesn't have the benefit of the start). Also in the 100 fly, Michael Andrew finished 8th in the A final after leading at the 50 (out in 24.2, back in 29.7). It seems to me that his training approach just isn't giving him the base necessary to hold it together on the back half.

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At that level, a 5+s fade in the 2nd half of a 100 is unheard of, doesn't cut it, and needs to be fixed. The days of blasting off and hanging on went out the door a quarter-century ago. Most of the performances at NCAA's the guys were +2-3s max. LCM is a little different, but you won't find many over 3-3.5s slow down. Many very good coaches and swimmers have said USRPT is nothing "new", what was new was doing it exclusively, and they all said there was going to be a base issue eventually. You can do that shit when you're 12. Eventually you grow up, you have muscle mass, you have an engine that works differently. I want Michael Andrew to succeed, but at this point how do you develop what's missing? He missed years of training that almost all the world class swimmers his age had.

Dressel should be fine. He's already performed at the top of the top in LCM. It's because he's a great swimmer on top of the water in addition to the sick UW's that also made him the greatest scy swimmer of all time. Is he ever going to throw his hat into the 200 IM ring?

Hell, at my piddly level I try to manage my 100 fly so I have a 3-3.5s fade, if I can (as long as I'm in shape).

The other thing about MA is that he basically races every meet as a shave/taper meet. He's not doing the things that basically every other world class sprinter is doing. He's not in the weight room, he's not doing any aerobic base work. Cody Miller's podcast today talked about how he was going to the Richmond meet, and his coaches had him working his ass off, no rest at all going in. I'm pretty sure Dressel is in a pretty heavy training block right now too, given that his goals for the year are centred around Worlds. Give Dressel 2 weeks of rest and a shavedown right now, and he's going 1.5-2s faster than the 52.0 he just did, and probably a 1:45 or so for the 200, whereas with MA he'll still be going 54.0. There isn't that element of untapped potential there. Under this approach, I don't see how MA makes the Olympic team next year, even in the 50, when the guys he's beating in midseason get a nice taper and shave for Trials.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly