Swimming interlude

As you may have realized from several past notes, swimming is my second passion.  As you may also imagine, my loyalties were somewhat divided yesterday night when the time came for the 4x100 freestyle men final.

Because of the d*** time delay which NBC and its advertisers impose on TV viewers, I tried to follow the race online, but even there, the sites that provided “live timing” were also experiencing delays and other quirks.  So when my iPad’s screen finally showed the results, I was both stunned and elated.

Once again, life shows that forecasts and predictions are just that, extrapolations of the past which are as likely to pan out as to fail.  As in economics, sport experts find it very difficult to model human factors, either at the individual or group level.

Australia was the overwhelming favorite, the US was expected to be a worthy second with no hope of winning, and the French didn’t register on anybody’s radar (I believe the British bookmakers put the odds of a French victory at 7:1).  Contrarians anywhere?

After having styled themselves as the Weapons of Mass Destruction who would not just beat but annihilate the rest of the field, the Australians felt the overwhelming pressure to deliver and they faltered.  Indeed, faltered is perhaps too tame a word; they collapsed, finishing fourth behind Russia.

The US team had a very good race; indeed, it performed better than most expected.  Nathan Adrian touched first with a very fast and personal best of 47.89.  Michael Phelps kept the lead with a 47.15 split, probably a personal best and unexpected after his disappointing 400 IM performance.  Cullen Jones retained the lead in a solid 47.70.  Ryan Lochte fought very hard in 47.74, a good time for him.  This was the best line-up the US could offer.  Matt Greevers is intrinsically faster than Lochte but he had just finished swimming his 100 backstroke semi-final; under the circumstances, he might have matched Lochte’s time, but that would not have been enough to win.

The French, no longer under the microscope, swam very well too, and as the US in 2008, won thanks to an exceptional anchor who simply defeated models and extrapolations.  Amaury Leveaux, the team’s “mental stabilizer”, was a close third in 48.13 in the first leg.  Fabien Gilot, another survivor from the 2008 relay, advanced his team to second place in a strong 47.67.  Perhaps the first surprise performance was Clement Lefert, a 200 free specialist, who clocked a 47.39, surely a personal best when adjusted for the relay start.  Despite swimming the heats and semi-finals of the 200 free earlier in the day, Yannick Agnel blew the field with a blistering 46.74, exactly one second faster than Lochte.

Paraphrasing Yogi Berra, 95% of swimming is half mental.  The 4x100 relay, once again, proved it.  For France, after losing a “sure” gold medal in 2008, winning the gold at the world short course in Dubai and the silver at the European long course championships in Budapest, this London victory was sweet.

What about the losers?  Before we write off the Australian Missile, James Magnusson, let us not forget that Alain Bernard, after losing the anchor fight to Jason Lezak in 2008, came back to win the 100 free gold medal.  The mental pressures of a relay are different from those of an individual race.  Not all individual swimmers are good at relays and vice versa.

For the Americans, I think that it may be a good time to reflect on two issues.  First, it is generally accepted that relays give a good picture of an overall program.  In this regard, it is uncomfortable to think that Ryan Lochte, an extraordinary swimmer but not a sprinter, was the best available choice to complete the US relay.  It is also worth studying why France, not a traditional swimming world power, has come to be competitive with the US in sprint.  It started its ascent when a number of French swimmers came to study and swim at Auburn, but it has accelerated since then with less input from the top US swimming meccas.

Second, there is excessive pressure on the top US swimmers to sign up for as many events as they can.  As the rest of the world catches up and 200m events now incorporate semifinals, this can trigger adverse chain reactions: excessive physical stress, insufficient recovery intervals, disappointing results, self doubt, etc.  This hasn’t happened yet in these London Games, but it did in the past and could again in coming days.