Junior Nationals - Day 3

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Today was day 3 of 4 days of competition here in Indianapolis. Today's races included the 400 Free and the 100 Fly. Jeff was competing in the 100 Fly. It's one of Jeff's favorite events and he was pretty excited about it. Jeff, like many older swimmers in Niagara and USA Swimming in general, is a huge Finals swimmer. Often,  the preliminary rounds are used just to qualify for the evening session, where you can then come back and "earn the hardware" at night. After all, we've all seen the great ones like Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte ease off in their prelim or semi-final swims only to come back in the final set world or Olympic records in the finals. It's not that they "don't try" in prelims, they absolutely do, it's just that those prelim "opportunities" are not often viewed the same way as final "opportunities" are. After all, no places, or medals are won in prelims, right? Today was reminder that, as swimmers, you MUST treat every "opportunity" to swim as a finals swim, because you are never assured that that "next swim" will be there if you don't.

Jeff's best lifetime prelim swim time was a 57.20 heading into today's race and his best final time was a 56.50. He was seeded overall at 36th in the program (out of 104) going into the prelims session. Jeff felt pretty good and made a great run of it in the morning and went a 56.54 in the prelims session, right at his best finals lifetime best. It was a great swim, but he was just a little tentative in his first 15 meters (we thought). We had calculated that it would take roughly a 56.50 to make it back to the finals session......... and we were just about dead on. Jeff's prelim swim moved him up 10 spots to 26th overall, 2 places out of the the top-24 that they take back for the coveted finals session. To add insult to injury, 1 person scratched out of the finals session, leaving Jeff as the first alternate. First alternate is that dreaded spot at any meet, because you have to come back and be ready to swim, but if there are no medical scratches (very unlikely), you don't get that finals opportunity to improve. The difference between Jeff's 25th place and not getting to swim and 24th place with the opportunity of the nighttime do-over............ in this case was .02 seconds (56.52 to 56.54). That is all that separated 24th and 25th place.

All in all, it was a great race for Jeff and he certainly gave it his best shot and moved up the field pretty well, but to come so far and to just miss out by a fingernail is a tough thing for any swimmer to endure. If there is any lesson to take from this for any young swimmers out there, its to make sure that every opportunity to race must be taken advantage of. Sure, you don't win any medals in the prelims round, but when you reach this elite level of swimming, you MUST preform in the morning, or you will not get the opportunity to do it at night. If you can't make it out on to the dance floor, you'll never get to dance. It's that simple.

Tomorrow brings a new dawn and we're excited for what the day will bring. Jeff is swimming the 200 Freestyle, which is a very good event for him. He hasn't done many this summer, so it'll be interesting to see where he is at. His backstroke is actually looking really good too, so we decided to time trial him in the 200 Backstroke tomorrow afternoon. He hasn't done it in over a year, so we are really interested in seeing what kind of time he can turn in.

Jeff seemed to fare a little bit better then his other Niagara competitors on this day. This meet is so extraordinarily hard to get to, that most swimmers have already had to rest/shave just to get here that they are already past their physical peaks. Also, this level of competition is like NOTHING these swimmers are used to facing so it sometimes throws them off their game a bit. EVERY swimmer at this meet is an elite swimmer and when you are used to being the "best of the best", which all of these swimmers are back at home, it's a little humbling to say the least to come here and be surrounded by so many great swimmers. All the other Niagara swimmers that swam today (Dina Rommel, Summer Schmitt, PJ Ransford and Jack Boyd) were all a bit off their lifetime bests in today swims, but they certainly did Western NY proud just making it here and representing the other 5700 swimmers from Niagara that did not. All will have other swims in the next couple days to once again, showcase their talent against the best 18 & under swimmers in the country.