The first day of the Austin Grand Prix was absolutely a great one! There were excellent swims that only make me want more from all of those athletes competing in day 2! Here are the top 8 in each event and a run-down of what I thought of the swims.
The Ladies
In the 400M free, the ever-growing-popular Chloe Sutton was able to wrangle in a first place touch over Katie Hoff. However, my feeling on the overall race (and somewhat on the whole idea of prelims in a short course pool while finals are in a long course pool) is that the walls absolutely helped Katie Hoff in the prelims (along with almost every other swimmer that goes their fastest out of the turn), but the lack of walls in the finals definitely hurt her – especially going up against Sutton who has the open water background and doesn’t necessarily need those little boosts of speed to maintain times in a longer event.
My ranting aside, it was a great race between the two ladies. The other top finishers were: Lauren Driscoll, Sarah Henry, Lynette Lim, Henriette Stenkvist, Micha Burden, and Madison White with Caroline Burckle less than a second behind her. One right
The 100 fly turned into an outstanding competition between Natalie Coughlin, Dana Vollmer, and Christine Magnuson! Coughlin took out the first 50 in a very fast 27.52. Magnuson and Vollmer trailed her on that turn (respectively at 27.64 and 27.88), but turned on the jets on the back 50. Vollmer and Magnuson were able to pass by Coughlin, but Vollmer made the final touch in at 58.42 for first place. Magnuson held on to second as she finished with a 58.54, and Coughlin took a third with a time of 58.94.
The other top finishers for this event were: Jessica Hardy, Whitney Myers, Ariana Kukors, Natalie Hinds, and Margaret Hoelzer. One Wrong…just barely
To say the very least, Ariana Kukors blew her competition out of the water in the 200 IM with a 2:10.34 which was over 3.5 seconds ahead of Whitney Myers who took second. The rest of the top 8 were: Justine Mueller, Megan Jendrick (almost broke the top 3 as originally predicted), Erika Erndl, Sinead Russell, Sarah Henry, and Corrie Clark. Two Right!
What happened in the 50 freestyle?! I originally predicted that Lara Jackson who was seeded first dropped to eighth place, and Jessica Hardy was able to out-swim Amanda Weir for first place! The other top finishers were: Madison Kennedy, Christine Magnuson, Lisa Neal, and Hee-Jin Chang. Two Wrong?!
The Men
I really need to keep in mind that the finals of this event are in LCM!! This completely threw me off on my predictions, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing!
With the 100 fly for the men, I had predicted that Matt Grevers was going to overtake Masayuki Kishida. However, it was Kishida that took home the first place victory with a 53.30. David Russell was able to just out-touch Grevers for second place. The rest of the top 8 field were: Aaron Peirsol, Jakob Andkjaer, Andrew Wang, Nick Thoman, and Samuel Kiefer. Three Wrong?!
In the 400 freestyle, Peter Vanderkaay was an absolutely phenom finishing first with a time of 3:50.86 which was almost 2.5 seconds ahead of Michael Klueh (3:53.15). However, let’s talk about this race a little bit…
Klueh was in first after the first 100, but Vanderkaay came on extremely strong in the 150 length to make up a .4 difference. At that point, Vanderkaay was not going to be caught as he negative split the last 150 of the race! I’m not saying that Klueh mis-judged his pace, but to all of those age-group swimmers out there looking to swim the 400/500, this was the race to watch!
The rest of the top 8 finishers were: Sean Ryan, Steven Hill, William Freeman, Matthew Patton, Joseph Arnold, and Sebastian Jahnsen. Four Wrong?!
In the 400 IM, Robert Margalis started and finished strong in order to touch in first! Andrew Ford and Jay Cormier fought it out for second place as Ford took the finish and Cormier coming in third. The other battle was for fourth place between Branden Whitehurst, Bart Steninger, and Alex Vanderkaay! All three went back and forth til the end of the race where they each touched in respectively 4 – 5 – 6. Robert Hommel finished 7th while Ian Clark took 8th. Truly not the race that I tought Vanderkaay would have, but a great race by all of the swimmers overall! Sadly, Five Wrong!
Cesar Cielo, thankfully, allowed me to have some sort of shame in my five wrong predictions with his victory in the 50 freestyle over a very tight field. Garrett Weber-Gale and Matt Grevers were the other two athletes in the top 3 (respectively) with the rest of the field settling in at: George Bovell (4th), William Copeland (5th), Jakob Andkjaer (6th), Bennett Clark (7th), and Dale Rogers wrapping up the top finals heat. Three Right!!!
Overall, I am absolutely looking forward to a great day 2 for the Austin stop in the Grand Prix Series, and I think I might be more so looking forward to a better day of predictions on my end!
Have any comments about the swims? Feel free to leave comments and opinions!
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