(This post is like two months in the making…thanks crappy SD State internet!)

Not gonna lie, Ryk Neethling’s book is pretty much the shit.  It’s in my top 5 of athlete books – and that’s quite the list, mind you.  It’s really opened my eyes to what swimmers have to go through to get their justice.  And it really showed me how good US swimmers have it!  But I think the number one reason I love this book is from what the previous owner left for me:

Awesome, no?

Whenever someone here brings up Phelps, my response is, and like any Swim Aid, “uh!” and an eye roll.  Then I get the obligatory response: “Why are you judging him?  You don’t know him!”  Oh how wrong you are!

So I would just like to thank the previous owner of Chasing the Dream for backing the Swim Aids. You, whomever and where ever you may be, you have a place here with us!

Seriously, I laughed so hard water  came out of my nose!  And that hasn’t happened since the fourth grade when my friend Sarah “accidentally” tripped one of our teachers.

P.S. Sorry for the not so great picture quality – my camera doesn’t like to read!

If you’re part of the cool crowd that is tweeting on Twitter (good for you), then this post is for you!

Dara Torres just created her own Twitter account, so y’all should definitely follow her! She’s currently gracing the cover of More Magazine. And don’t forget her book, Age Is Just A Number, is coming out soon; April 7th to be exact. Find more info, including her book signing dates, on her official website < /shameless plug>

And since we’re talking Twitter, you should follow our Swim Stars account too! You’ll not only get the news items from SwimStars.org, but also all the good stuff from right here on Swim Aids. It’s called consolidation and we’re big fans.

The Staabster strikes again!

It’s only been a short while since we revived the Austin Staab Fan Club and here comes news that Austin has claimed the NCAA record — and his first individual title — in addition to bettering his own brand new American Record set at the recent Pac-10 Championships. The new record stands at 44.18.

It’s been an eventful month for Austin, and it’s nice to see him continue to excel! The Fan Club is impressed.

Thanks to my local newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch, I finally have learned that Austin was M.I.A. last Spring/Summer due to shoulder surgery. Yay for the internet research!

We were in awe at the Olympic Trials watching Lia Neal race. And she was only 13. Holy cow!

In the media section, we had some wonderful people around us (from Do Tell Productions). They had been following/promoting her for a while, and let us know that we should keep an eye on Lia because she was going to do big things!

ESPN just published a wonderful Q&A with Lia that we recommend everyone check out. (LINK) I don’t know about y’all, but I was nowhere near that level-headed when I was in the 8th grade!

It’s going to be a pleasure to watch Lia grow up and make waves in the sport. We’re still impressed and will routinely give Miss Lia shout-outs here on the Swim Aids website.

P.S. We took some pictures of Lia, at Trials, that would have been perfect to use in this story. But again, kiwi has all of them and won’t mail them to me

There can never be enough swim blogs, and we’ve got a new one for y’all to add to your bookmarks: The Swim Brief.

It’s brought to you by Swim Aid stalker fan, Mike Gustafson, best known from his hilarious contributions to the uber-fab Chlorination. We spent a ton of quality time with good ol’ Gus in Omaha and got to know him rather well. I also had the pleasure of spending 3 loonnnnggg hours in an airport with him on our way back to our respective homes. Layovers pretty much suck, but anyone who can entertain me for that long — that early in the morning — is obviously worthy of your time as well.

So check out his blog at theswimbrief.blogspot.com, and tell ‘em The Swim Aids sent ya.

I know it’s appeared that our posts reppin’ for Austin Staab have disappeared. We can explain!

See, what had happened was…

#1. He completely fell off our radar last Spring/Summer after NCAAs. And, to our knowledge, did not compete at the Olympic Trials.

#2. Our West Coast Correspondent left the Bay Area, in favor of SoCal, and no longer can make a short 20 minute trip to Stanford to check in on young Austin.

I’m from his hometown, but it’s not like he competes for WAC anymore. So, our bad!

Anyway….this post is to congratulate Austin on that bad ass 100y Fly he swam Friday at the Pac-10 Championships. He turned in a 44.69 to establish not only a new Pac-10 and Stanford Record, but also American Record that previously belonged to teh Crockah. You may now refer to Sir Staab as ‘American Record Holder Austin Staab’. Bad. Ass.

It does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

So, now that I think about it, this should have been the post that had the title “The Return of ___”, but since that one’s already taken by the previous post, and it’d be terribly tacky to repeat a post title like that, I had to switch things up!

After Trials, which brought an extreme wave of sadness to the Swim Aids when Davis Tarwater didn’t make the team, we thought we’d seen the last of him in the pool. That night in Omaha, there were tears, or maybe “man tears” would be a more accurate description. Point is, we were devastated.

Our sources didn’t know any more than we did about the future of his swimming career, so we thought it was a past tense thing. To make matters worse, we knew that there were only 2 post-grad swimmers training in Ann Arbor, and both of their last names are Vanderkaay. So T-Dub!! had to be done, right?

WRONG!

Last week, I took a quick look over the Austin Grand Prix psych sheet and I saw something that made my jaw drop:

So, apparently after the quadrennium came to a close, T-Dub!! said to himself: “Take me to another place. Take me to another land.” And the Lord guided him (back) to Tennessee and the local Tennessee Aquatics swim program.

Davis is competing this weekend, in Austin, and is already off to a great start. He turned in the fastest time in the men’s 100y Fly prelims this morning.

So, can I get a “T-DUB!!” or what?

This post is brought to you by Arrested Development (the group, not the TV show, you damn young’uns):

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