Not thumbwrestling... thumbswimming.

My addiction to ipod/iphone apps just reached new heights. This is kind of old news, but I hadn't seen it before. It's called "Finger Olympic Swimmer 100M" and it looks kind of cool. I am going to look like a total idiot when I am doing this during the diving session at saturday high school meets.

Swimming Satire

I stumbled upon this Onion-style article in the "Enduring Vision" about adding "acid swimming" to the Olympic games and thought it was going to be kind of dumb. I think it might have been written by someone who knows something about swimming, because they added a couple of lines that made it seem to be pretty relevant satire. Like the following:

In keeping with standard Olympic guidelines, no steroid use will be tolerated in the event. However, due to the acid, additional guidelines must also be implemented.

"If any contestant is found to secretly be wearing a suit of armor, or even fake, acid-resistant skin over their actual skin, they will be disqualified immediately," Schwartzman said. "This event is designed to test the human body's tolerance for sulfuric acid, not some synthetic material."

They also had this gem in their archives about Phelps and his drug use:

"We will evaluate whether it will be acceptable for Mr. Phelps to ever compete in the Olympics again," said the president of IOC, Jacques Rogge. "Smoking marijuana may be the greatest offense ever committed by an athlete, ever."

Good stuff.

More technology for us to argue about...

So, now that the swimsuit controversy is dying down (just kidding) it seems like the perfect time to introduce another new technological advance that will cut more time from our world records. Apparently, they were way too slow and needed to all be erased as quickly as possible.

According to the Herald Sun, the Australian Institute of Sport is installing new blocks with an adjustable foot rest so swimmers can get more push from their back foot on the start. They will debut at the Australia vs. Japan Duel in the Pool on May 9 and 10. I am guessing this will be pretty similar to what is used in Track. There weren't any pictures. It apparently doesn't involve a springboard, which was my first concern.

Honestly, this will just add one more dimension to the list of "what makes a fast pool."

Oh well. As long as it takes everyone's eyes off of performance enhancing drugs long enough for me to shoot up before I put on my Jaked, I guess it ain't all bad.

You know you are famous when...

I once heard someone famous say they were sooo excited to finally be made into an action figure like Harrison Ford. I told my girls team once that I wanted an action figure made of me someday, so they cut my face out of a picture and glued it to a naked Ken doll with a cape.

Clever, but disturbing nonetheless.

I think it is really cool that there are so many strange ways your face can be marketed to let you know you are finally famous. We all think of the simple ones, like the cover of a magazine, a movie poster or appearing on Letterman. We might actually enjoy some of the ones that are a little more obscure, like when you are made into an action figure, appear on cereal boxes, cartoons, a whacked out record in the Guinness book, or when you score your first stalker . Then there are the really out there ones…

…like finding your name multiple times in the urban dictionary.

Go ahead. Look up Phelps. You will find crazy definitions for the following and more:

Phellowship, Phelopiandude, phelp, phelp faced, phelpage, Phelped, Phelpian, phelpified, phelpin' , Phelping, Phelpism, phelpistic, Phelpitized, Phelps, Phelps Hit, Phelps Phan, phelps phenomenon, Phelps Photo Op, Phelps Phreestyle, Phelps syndrome, Phelps'd, Phelps-it, Phelps-o-gasm, phelps-style, Phelpsed Out, Phelpsgasm, Phelpsian, Phelpsian Achievement, Phelpsian breakfast, Phelpsian feat, Phelpsianic, Phelpsies, Phelpsin' It, phelpsing

…and the best one Phelpsturbate.

Ouch, man. Maybe I don’t want to win 8 gold medals.

Alaskan Signing in the Press

It is nice to see an Alaskan girl get some press for signing. For having such a small population, Alaska seems to produce a good amount of excellent swimmers. I am sure the weather change was a big factor in her choice of school. Fairbanks to New Mexico will be quite a shock to the system.
Congrats to Alyssa Kiell!

We are topping the list!

Swimming is at the top of the list... that is, USA Today's list of the top 5 things to be peeved about in sports.
And, of course, to add to my confusion, USA Today also seems to think that the X-Glide and the Jaked won't pass FINA's test starting January 1st.
Hey... any press is good press, right?

Mark Schubert Becoming a Purist?

Just a few minutes after that last post I noticed that the Arena X-Glide does have the polyurethane separated into panels which might help it to pass FINA’s phase 2...

Then, I happened upon this article in the Chicago Tribune, which said that FINA standards will require suits to have no more than 50% polyurethane and that the X-Glide and many other suits would be illegal starting January 1st. The author of the article didn’t have all of his facts straight, (he said that Bernard was the first man under 50 in the 100m,) but he might be on to something, and that does gel with my theory that Speedo has a lot of influence in writing the new rules. I have always felt that since Speedo is the biggest suit maker and has the most influence on the world scene I wouldn’t be surprised if the wording came out that the LZR would be safe and most of the other tech suits out there would be banned. There has been a lot of talk lately that makes it sound like the LZR is the normal and everything released since then that seems to be better should be considered cheating.

Utter silliness.

Then I got to the part of the article that really threw me for a loop… Mark Schubert’s quotes: "It's totally out of control,'' "Now we're into speedboat driving.'' "But the saddest thing is we no longer are able to compare generations. Swimming should be about the swimmer, not the suit.''

Mark Schubert has been a part of the great swim suit race since the release of the Belgrade back in 1972. He arguably abused his position with USA Swimming to serve Speedo’s interests in the LZR hyper drive leading up to Beijing, This was the guy who was one of the most outspoken proponents of new technology and fed the hype that put us into this tech-suit mess. He even pushed sponsored athletes to desert their suit makers which in effect may have forced some major companies out of the sport and out of competition with Speedo… and now he’s making an argument about the suits being ridiculous and comparing the sport to speedboat racing? All of a sudden he has changed his mind about tech suits now that there are suits better than the LZR? WTF? His argument about not being able to compare to past generations? That and the outrageous cost were my arguments against tech suits at floswim, and I was in opposition to him! He didn’t seem to care about that when Speedo was leading the tech race and he was laughing his way to the bank! He opened the door to polyurethane suits!

AND I QUOTE (from an older interview, pre-Beijing): “My advice to athletes is, ‘You have a black-and-white decision - the money or the gold medal.' And it's going to be a real test of character." “There is no doubt the suit makes a difference and there is no doubt that there is one manufacturer that's put millions into research while the other manufacturers are more into fashion. Nobody at this level [world-class athletes] can afford to give up 2 per cent. It is not rocket science. ...” -- Mark Schubert.

Unreal.

This is as bad, or maybe even worse than, USA Swimming abusing their position to control rights to media coverage of swimming events. What they pulled with Garrett at Y Nats was embarrassing, and just serves as more evidence that our non-profit National Governing Body has some identity issues that they need to work out. Promote the sport first. We have no room for the interference of misguided interests within the offices of the group that is supposed to take care of us. FINA wasn’t the only organization that mishandled their role in the dawn of the tech suit.

Of course, they might be able to get back in my good graces if they knock the price of the LZR down to about thirty bucks each…

…Yeah, right. Like that’s gonna happen. That is about as likely as TYR sponsoring my blog.