Just speculation, but a bunch of people pointed out that he could very well be/have been a hitman with how he so casually got silver.
Last night thoughts. Sjostrom’s win was awesome, she’s amazing and a really nice person. This is Marchand’s Olympic, he’s the best swimmer in the world. 200 breast fly double is insane. As Good Effort! Good Game! pointed out, his NCAA’s this year were unreal. In addition to that 500, he led off ASU’s 4X200 flat start 1:28 200 free also a record. As scary as it sounds, he’s actually a better spurt course swimmer with his walls. That 100 is ridiculous. There is every reason to be suspect of it. After thirty years of that record being broken by .1 every few years, and Cesar Cielo(who also was doping, btw) holding it for 13. A record being broken by .4, is highly, highly suspicious. Especially after all that has come out about their program. Also the dude is 19, sprinter mature later usually, because you get bigger and stronger in your 20s. It’s not sour grapes, it just doesn’t pass the smell test Felt horrible for Matt, If he swam his trials time, he medals. Such a bad swim, out too slow, circle swimming like an age grouper. He always was very difficult to coach. He’s so smart, so smart. Was in AP calculus as a sophmore, speaks fluent Chinese. Maybe as a result, he doesn’t always listen. ALL of his coaches have told him to get out quicker. And I get it’s Wharton at UPenn, but that was a silly choice. Fought his parents so hard on it. Swimming in a crappy 25yard pool with no one to train with? I get it’s UPenn, but he had an offer to swim at Stanford(‘which is a pretty damn good academic school) with training partners and maybe the best aquatics center in the US? He seems fine however and still young, not by normal human standards, but for a swimmer he still is a little “doughy”. His teammates growing up called him Fat Mallon. If decide to stick with swimming, there is a lot to improve on. Especially if he gets stronger, and trains long course with other elite swimmers. Hugely disappointing performance from the American men, but it was expected in the swimming community here. If Finke doesn’t win the 1500, they will get shutout of golds for the first time ever. We’ve been spoiled, but this is a team without a star. As was pointed out a group with stars a little past their prime, and then a bunch of guys that are still green. Longcated this long enough. Have thoughts I may share later. But there are a lot of really young guys that should be primed for LA. Heilman semi-ed in the 200 fly as a 17 year old. Jones finaled at 19. Matt just turned 21. Matt and Jack Alexy actually swam for the same Y club team, I tried so hard for him to swim on the HS team I used to coach. Went to the catholic school here. He is also still in college, and has improved a ton every year. He so freaking tall he will be better as he gets older. So all is not lost, but Another Phelps isn’t walking through the door. I think they should be in pretty good shape next cycle. Sorry to longcat. And the casual fan/Aussies silver and bronze medals don’t matter, and is fucking hilarious.
That's my hope but I don't really keep up with the sport so it's good to hear someone like you speculate on this. 4 more years of training plus home field should hopefully lead to a lot more golds.
Love this, we should start a swimming thread bc I don't have a place to nerd out about this stuff year round. To your point on the youth on the men's team, four years is a long time to improve. Chris G, who was the 2nd coming of Biondi coming into the meet, is only a Senior as well (go Irish). Hopefully a few of these guys wrapping up NCAA and training pro full time has them ready. I don't think I've ever seen the US have such a drop off from trials so am curious what, if anything, was different with their taper schedule this time around
Cameras aren’t really a distraction from what I’ve been told. The hard at these meets in huge venues is for backstrokes picking up your “line” usually you pick a spot on the ceiling and use it as guidance, hard to do in a football or rugby stadium. It’s not as hard as swimming in an outdoor pool(which sucks as a former backstroker), but still difficult I’ve been told. To echo what Good Effort! Good Game! said, and was posted by other. This pool sucks. Unbelievable that they would spend all this money on the Olympics and not make a pool deep enough. It’s actually obvious if you watch it on TV compared to the trials. The water is just choppy, and the wake off the walls is crazy. It’s not just the depth the gutters are not right there.
Good lord, didn't realize it had been that long since a women's gymnastic medal in all around in two consecutive olympics. Guessing Simone would have in 2021 if she didn't withdraw.
I’ll never understand the scoring. She was so much better than the Italian and barely squeaked by her.
Sunis starting difficulty is lower on a lot of events including floor. Matters so much as long as the routines aren't standard deviations away in execution.