Pan Pacs: Day 1

The first morning of prelims featured some interesting racing, but the big topic of discussion was the two swimmers per country rule. Only two can make finals from one country, which becomes an issue when the U.S. goes 1-2-3-8 in the women's 200 free. On top of that, only one other swimmer can make the B-final, so eighth-ranked Katie Hoff doesn't get a second swim in the event. Because I don't want to be repetitive and they did such a good job, you can listen to Garrett McCaffrey and Jeff Comming's prelim recap/finals preview. Swimming World TV is the place to go for any and all media coverage of the meet; they already got 14 athlete interviews this morning, with much more to come.



However, Garrett and Jeff forgot to talk about the men's 100 back, so I'll do it now. David Plummer proved every single swimming analyst wrong, and he did have more in the tank from his awesome swim at Nationals. He dropped his 53.60 down to 53.33, just one one-hundredth off of Aaron Peirsol's meet record of 53.32 from 2006. Peirsol had a big scare for finals, finishing fourth and third-best American, but Ryan Lochte's scratch puts Peirsol in the A-final and Thoman in the B-final, and both have chances to redeem themselves from poor swims at U.S. Nationals (possibly to make next year's Worlds team). Team USA could go 1-2 in the event, but Australia's Ashley Delaney swam a fast 53.78 in prelims, and the Japanese pair of Ryosuke Irie and Junya Koga, the third and fourth-fastest all time performers all-time (behind Peirsol and Camille Lacourt), are looming. It will be a close one. Thoman's B-final swim, however, won't be close. He will dominate the field and try to get close to or surpass the winning time in the A-final, in an attempt to make the Worlds team. He has a lot left in the tank after posting a 53.96 in prelims today.

Meanwhile, Lochte's 100 back show's us this meet's theme: "Hurricane Ryan," as Craig Lord put it. Lochte will swim as many races as he can and probably do well in all of them. He put down the top 200 free time (1:46.10) maybe 20 minutes before his 53.68 second-place finish in the 100 back. For those of you keeping track, that's not far off his best time ever, 53.37 from Olympic Trials (in a LZR). Look for a string of amazing performances this week, maybe even a world record.

I will be running a Swimming World virtual meet this week, with the top eight times from combining European Champs and Pan Pacs. This will lead into the 2010 Virtual World Championships, which will also include Commonwealth Games (and possibly Asian Games). I will try to have each night's virtual results on Swimming World a half hour after the swimming finishes.

Updated Predictions:

Women's 50 Fly

1. Marieke Guehrer

2. Emily Seebohm

3. Jessica Hardy

Men's 50 Fly

1. Geoff Huegill

2. Roland Schoeman

3. Cesar Cielo

Women's 200 Free

1. Allison Schmitt

2. Morgan Scroggy

3. Blair Evans

Men's 200 Free

1. Ryan Lochte

2. Peter Vanderkaay

3. Park Tae Hwan

Women's 100 Back

1. Emily Seebohm

2. Natalie Coughlin

3. Aya Terakawa

Men's 100 Back

1. Aaron Peirsol

2. David Plummer

3. Junya Koga

Women's 200 Fly

1. Teresa Crippen

2. Jessicah Schipper

3. Kathleen Hersey

Men's 200 Fly

1. Michael Phelps

2. Nick D'arcy

3. Takeshi Matsuda

Women's 800 Free

1. Katie Goldman

2. Chloe Sutton

3. Kate Ziegler

Men's 1,500 Free

1. Ryan Cochrane

2. Chad LaTourette

3. Ous Mellouli

Finals begin tonight at 6pm pacific (9pm eastern). You can watch live on Universal Sports (TV and internet) and Swimnetwork.com. At Omega Timing you can follow live results and find full results after each event. Additionally, both Chris DFLSantis and myself will be posting some commentary on Facebook (and Twitter for me) during the competition. Less than one hour to go!