I love watching swimming, but when an event is created, like the Duel In The Pool on NBC,* *and the expected competition between the USA and AUS turns into a blow out, an afternoon nap seems more entertaining. What is with AUS? Or do they just not care? Is this just an event for Americans to pump their resume up with W’s?
There’s a lot more depth in the US, especially when you look at the top 5 or 10 swimmers per event. So, we will always have an advantage in a meet when the top three in each event score. Plus, this is an off year, when lots of swimmers might be taking some time off from competition, and the loss of a few top swimmers, like, let’s say, Ian Thorpe, is going to hurt the Aussies a lot more than us. Finally, the meet was in the US and the World Championships right next door in Canada, so it’s a lot easier for us to get more good swimmers there.
The Australians just have roughly zero depth on the men’s side right now. With Thorpe taking time off, and Michael Klim past his prime, Grant Hackett’s carrying the standard all by his lonesome. Okay, they’ve got Jim Piper, but he’s only swum legally about half the time in recent years.
The Australian women actually finished about three points ahead of the American women at the meet. I don’t see them as terribly deep either, but they’ve got a very solid top six swimmers instead of top one and a half like the mne’s side does.
I thought this was fun to watch. Give a little thought to the fact that we are about 15 times the size of Australia, so we should kick their butts in a format like this.
Unfortunately, I missed the event (I was smashing myself up on the Taconic 909 trails)
But, I think that ANY televised event that features some sport other than baseball, football or NASCAR on American TV is a plus, no matter how contrived…
Just my 2c…
(Go Cowboys!!)
Greg
An awful lot of races, especially on the men’s side, were also lopsided 3-2 in favor of the Americans, so that’s going to make it pretty tough. I guess that’s probably related to some of the depth issues others have mentioned, but you’re right, it wasn’t terribly exciting.
Have to agree. US of A pop is in the order of 300 million , right. Aus is just about 21 million. Might be more appropriate for the duel in the pool to be Aus vs california (which still has a population approaching 40 mill) :-)! But like any of these things, Aus revels in the idea of taking home at least a share of the prizes. I think most Australians accept that we will never have the depth that the US does.
While swimming is popular here, it still ranks behind football (Rugby league, Rugby union, Australian Rules, Soccer), netball, possibly Basketball. Swimming is also mostly a high school sport as intervarsity sport is very limited in this country.