Phelps on SI

Sports Illustrated decided to reproduce a famous photo of Mark Spitz when he won 7 gold medals back in 1972. Spitz had a prototypical American hunk look. That is, he looked like Tom Selleck or Burt Reynolds back when a moustache meant virility rather than its modern perception as something out of an old porn movie, which now goes by the moniker, pornstache.

The picture has Phelps wearing all 8 medals giving a toothy grin, and people then realize, athletes, as much as their bodies reflect their extreme athletic prowess, may or may not be attractive in traditional poses. Phelps has been accused of being dorky in that photo, he does look pretty dorky.

At times, Phelps can look rather striking, mostly when he is looking intense in the pool, rather than when he's all smiles.

But the point is this, and it's interesting to point out.

Why do we care?

To be fair, the old adage, sex sells, works. It doesn't hurt that fit athletes are often attractive. Sure, things can compensate. Usain Bolt isn't particularly handsome, nor is he particularly ugly. He cuts a striking figure because he's tall and the guy showboats. He really enjoys his wins, and therefore, we enjoy his wins.

Women have a higher standard to achieve. Sometimes, women's good looks are enough to be the difference. A sexy javelin player might be the Anna Kournikova of her field, unable to win the big medals, but easy on the eyes.

Perhaps the commentary on how good Phelps looks is a matter of what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Women have been scrutinized for their looks for so long, so maybe a guy, as accomplished as Phelps was during this year's Olympics, has critical eyes that eye his physique, and the odd absence of swim trunks as if the photo was taken while he was in the buff.

We celebrate the accomplishments of athletes, but in the end, one reason they are so loved, beyond their physical prowess is their physical appearances. Due to rigorous training, outside of powerlifters and pre-teens, athletes are thin, strong, and yes, even attractive, even amongst themselves (thus, the need for prodigious condoms for the athletes discrete non-competitive activities).

NBC recaps

I'm watching USA network which is covering tennis. They are one of like five networks covering the Olympics including CNBC, MSNBC, the Oxygen network, and NBC itself. They re-televised the call for the 4 by 100 medley relay. What you see is that, after the third leg, the Americans are just ahead of the Japanese, with the Australians behind them, but then the Japanese guy is just fading, especially on the back half. The Japanese guy is, for about the first 25 m, ahead of Australia, but at 50m, he's in third, and is fading towards fourth at the end.

So the most successful group of four would have been Peirsol for backstroke, Kitajima in breaststroke, Phelps in the butterfly, and finally Eamon Sullivan in freestyle. This would have maybe cut the total time by a second overall.

Recap on the 4 by 100 team medley

Well, a little over four hours after I missed the live 4 by 100 medley, NBC finally has it up, and I was able to watch the relay. As it turns out, the medley, despite the US never losing this event before, was much, much closer than I'd expected.

The event started off with Peirsol, a backstroker. He was a touch slow, perhaps due to an injury, but nonetheless had the lead leg on both ends (at 50m then at 100m). In the second leg, Brendan Hansen swam breaststroke. Actually, the Japanese swimmer, Kitajima, managed to take the lead.

At this point, as the best butterfly swimmer, Phelps swam the third leg. While Phelps is good at 200m, he is weaker on the 100m, and at 50m, the Australian, Lauderstein actually outtouched Phelps. But Phelps moved ahead and touched ahead of Australia.

That left the last leg to Jason Lezak who anchored the 4 by 100 freestyle medal to barely edge out France by 0.04 seconds, catching up to Alain Bernard at the very end squeaking out a victory for the United States, and at the time, giving Phelps his second gold medal (the 4 by 200m freestyle relay was far more comfortable, the US being stronger at the longer distances). He had to fight off Eamon Sullivan of Australia, with a half a body length lead, and kept this lead all the way to the end.

Let's take stock of how it actually happened to the second.

The United States lead off with Aaron Peirsol, who lead the leg with backstroke at 53.16 seconds. This was apparently half a second off his record. At this point, the Russians were closest, with Arkady Vyatachanin at 53.36 seconds or just two-tenths behind.

The next leg was Brendan Hansen, who was the slow leg for the Americans, in breaststroke. He had a time of 59.27 seconds for his leg. Meanwhile, Kosuke Kitajima won this leg at 58.07 or more than a full second ahead. He was clearly the class of the field for this stroke, and actually touched ahead of Hansen. The Australians, at this point, were just 0.03 seconds behind. The Japanese had actually gotten half a second ahead of the Americans, but most felt they didn't have the back two swimmers to mount a serious challenge.

The next leg was Michael Phelps, swimming butterfly. At the split, the Australians were ahead, lead by Andrew Lauterstein, who had a great start. Phelps, however, regained the lead, and finished his leg at 50.15 seconds, to Lauterstein's 51.03 seconds, thus gaining back that strong lead. Indeed, by being nearly a second back, the Japanese also managed to make up time, with Takuro Fujii swimming at 50.89, or about a tenth of a second ahead.

At this point, the Americans had a total time, over three legs at 162.58 seconds, the Japanese had 162.83 seconds, and the Australians had 163.39. Indeed, because Lauterstein had faded badly in the butterfly, it allowed the Japanese butterfly swimmer, Fujii, to finish with a better time then Australia, and because Japan had the overall lead after the breaststroke in the second leg, they would still have the lead over Australia in the third.

Finally, Jason Lezak anchored the last leg. He swam in 46.76 which was actually a tenth of a second slower than Eamonn Sullivan at 46.65 seconds. However, as I just noted, Australia about 0.8 seconds slower after the third leg and had to make up 0.8 seconds, and only made up 0.1 seconds.

Japan was the team that really suffered on the freestyle. At 48.35 seconds, Sato was not only slower than Australia's Sullivan and American Lezak, he was also slower than everyone else swimming the freestyle that didn't disqualify (Italy was disqualified). Even so, that means he only swam less than 2 seconds slower than Sullivan. Because of the strong three legs swam by the first three Japanese swimmers, even this dismal swim meant a reasonably comfortable bronze.

To be honest, if the Japanese had a decent freestylist, even someone that swam two or three tenths seconds slower than Lezak, they could have won silver (alas, that would be pretty quick, as only Cam Gibson of New Zealand had that kind of time).

The final time was Americans at 3:29.24, followed closely by the Australians at 3:30.04, and the Japanese team that faded badly at 3:31.18, which still had nearly a second cushion over Russia.

The margin of victory was just under a second, and while that looks very close, at this distance (400m), it's still a pretty comfortable lead (800 m can stretch those leads out even further).

Surprisingly, there is no 4 by 200m medley relay nor an 800m individual medley, which would probably favor the Americans and Phelps in both cases, as he's a stronger swimmer in longer distances.

Congrats to the American team for making a world record, and helping Phelps win his eighth gold (in the two close team events, Lezak anchored the last leg to help secure the win).

Although the video should have been up as quick as possible, a few hours, while painful, is reasonably quick. Obviously, in this age of instant gratification, they could have put something together quickly in 10-20 minutes, but preferred to stitch together everything (the swim, the interviews, the medals) and publish that instead.

Eight is Enough

I had been planning to watch Phelps win his eighth medal, presumably gold, in the 4 by 100 team medley. But the problem was that I didn't know exactly when he'd be swimming. I thought it was close to midnight. Had I remembered accurately, I would have known it was close to 11 PM. I arrived at my place around 11:20 PM some 10 minutes after the event had concluded. I should have simply left what I was doing before 11 and watched it.

Silly me.

So I watched, I think, 6 of the 8 medal swims live or nearly so.

But here's the painful part. NBC could have it at the video site the minute it was over. Instead, I'll have to wait several hours, most likely into tomorrow morning, before I can view it in full. Sad that events like this which can be easily missed aren't ready the instant it is concluded. People who barely miss it like me could watch it.

I'm disappointed I didn't know when it was and couldn't watch it live.

Seven and Counting

Michael Phelps, Baltimore native, is still on his quest for eight gold medals. There were two events that Michael Phelps was dicey on actually getting gold. There was the 3 by 100 freestyle relay. The French were expected to be quite competitive. Indeed, they were leading with scant meters to go, before Jason Lezak caught up to Alain Bernard, one of the fastest freestylists in the world.

The other event that Michael wasn't favored was the 100m butterfly where he doesn't hold the world record. Indeed at 50m, he wasn't in the lead. But at the last instant, while Cavic was coasting to try to touch, Phelps swam another stroke and as he reached out, he hit the pad ahead of Cavic by 0.01 seconds

This gets him to seven golds, and leave the 4 by 100 team relay, where each competitor swims a different stroke (breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle, and backstroke). The traditional order is butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.

It seems unreal how good Phelps is and that he is marching to destiny. He's tied Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals, and has a chance for eight.

Let's see if it happens.

Finding Phelps

You know what it's incredibly hard to do? You'd think with all the fuss NBC makes about Phelps they might actually put it up on their website. When Michael Phelps swims.

I want to know when the heats are, when the semifinals are, and when it's on TV.

Oh I know. NBC would prefer I sit in front of the television waiting all day to find when it is rather than tell me exactly when I should watch. It's sad, but true.

But you would think it would be so easy to do this. I have found a site, but it suggests that the heat I saw televised at noon was not live, which is fine. It doesn't have to be live.

One of these days, some site is going to figure it out, and let you know exactly when your favorite athlete is on, and then get that to you. In the meanwhile, we have to deal with this mess.

Which, by the way, a ton of sites that spew spam and such are perfectly willing to hijack whenever you try to locate the schedule of when Michael Phelps swims.

Stop being idiots and do the right thing.

Phelps

Michael Phelps is in his second Olympics. This is the time that people pay attention to sports like swimming and gymnastics and all sorts of other sports they would otherwise not pay attention too in the intervening four years.

People in this area pay some attention to Phelps because he's a Baltimore boy, and so his name has had some resonance, even before his success in the previous Olympics. Indeed, his name was more popular than his face. For a long time, I had no idea what he looked like.

Phelps is going for a Mark Spitz like record of some 8 gold medals. He's already won one gold medal in the 400 individual medley.

What's unknown to most people, me included, is the kind of person he is. Turns out, like many an American, he is the son of divorced parents when he was 9 years old. His mother is a principal at a middle school.

But it's difficult to determine what drives an individual. This is not Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, where fans follow his every accomplishment. They only pay attention at the Olympics, and Phelps gears himself to perform at his absolute best during the Olympics, as do many other swimmers.

While people discuss the lives of Brett Favre to death (and really, only his professional life), there's little known (to me) about one of the most accomplished American swimmer ever.

Admittedly, there are so many people out there, and we can hardly know them all, so why should Phelps be any different from anyone else. Why should we spend any more time figuring out who Phelps is? Perhaps like anything else, the answer is, why not?

Of course, the people who telecast the Olympics realize the games are for casual observers, and do as much to promote personalities as possible, realizing you have neither the time or inclination to do the research yourself, and then hope you have a long memory and remember them the next time the Olympics run.

Thus, this is Phelps's second Olympics at 23, and he was merely 19 the previous time in Athens. He could have an outside shot of competing at 27. I don't following swimming enough to know how long careers last (the odd exception is Dara Torres, who at 41, is swimming as fast as she ever has).