We’re real quick to point out when media members have huge mistakes in their work. We’ve been there ourselves except our work isn’t broadcast out to millions on the internetz and on major news outlets like ESPN.

The Charlotte UltraSwim is going on right now and there was a great race tonight in the 200 Free featuring Michael Phelps and Swim Aid favorite Peter Vanderkaay.

It’s just too bad that the Associated Press thought that race was the 100 Fly. Have you seen PVK swim the fly? We have. And it aint pretty. (We still love you, Pete!)

Behold the screencap, because I’m pretty sure they’ll eventually fix it! They have to, right?

Also, what’s a “400 IM relay”? That was in that article as well. I’m familiar with a 400 Medley relay, but that event hasn’t taken place yet…

Oops?

Kiwi and I were just chatting and it dawned on us that we haven’t seen each other since Trials! That is an eternity! Same goes for Carrie! And don’t even get me started on Erika, whom I haven’t seen since we rang in 2008 together! Some of the my other swim friends I last saw in Omaha as well and I miss them all! Twitter and Facebook are great, but I miss my homies!

Back when we first started getting into the sport (post-Athens bitches; we’ve been around a minute, huh?) we were all over the place. We were attending national meets nearly every other month and it was awesome! We were the fan fixtures in the stands learning more about the sport and meeting awesome swim parents at the same time. They simply could not believe we traveled to all of these meets without having a background in swimming ourselves!

Flash back to Summer Nationals in 2006. We spent our final night in Irvine, partying with the Florida Gator swimmers; the Lochtenator included. When some of them found out that we weren’t swimmers ourselves, they thought it was the coolest thing ever! It’s too bad hotel security shut that party down. It was jumpin’! Continue Reading »

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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For a grand total of 4 hours last night and this afternoon swimming came back into my life!

It’s been a very long stretch since I last covered an event. And while I wouldn’t call what I was doing this weekend “covering”, it was still nice to experience.

Everyone knows of my love affair with the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion on the Ohio State University Campus. It’s literally one of the nicest facilities I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to quite a few in the past 4.5 years. I went to the Ohio State vs. Kenyon meet, back in October, but that didn’t do a whole lot for me. In my heart, I knew it wouldn’t be right unless the men of the Maize and Blue were in the house.

This weekend they were and I couldn’t have been happier! Not just because I rep for Club Wolverine, but because it meant I got to gossip with one of my fave sets of swim parentals: the Vanderkaays. If you don’t know, you betta ask somebody! Anyway, OSU hosted a big quad-meet that brough Northwestern, Penn State, and Michigan to town. In addition, the Penn State women made the trip to duel the OSU women. For those reasons, the meet pretty much had to be broken up into 2 days. Continue Reading »

I’ve been home for almost 12 hours now, but haven’t done anything productive. Don’t judge me! I didn’t sleep at all last night. I mean, what’s the point when you have a 5AM flight, right?

Anyway, now that Jason has ruined our fun, I have to move on to other memorable moments from the final day of the 2008 US Olympic Team Trials. I would also like to state that being able to type this on my own computer, as opposed to my Sidekick phone, is a relief. Maybe it won’t take me 52095720 years to write this!

Sleeping in yesterday was glorious. Since I operate on “vampire time”, it was like being at home! We were out pretty late (at Farrell’s, of couse) but when we came back to our hotel, we stayed up a loooooong time! I’ll come back to some Farrell’s talk later because there are some things that we must vent about.

So the pool action. It was brief, no? But very exciting! Dara Torres’ agent, Evan, emailed me before the session and predicted a win and the American Record. He nailed that one! And how about Miss Jessica Hardy?! She amazes me! How many people are able to be world class breaststrokers and sprint freestylers? Recently, I can only think of one; Jessica! We got to meet her father earlier in the week, which was great because after you trade emails with people enough, you want to actually meet them face-to-face.

And I know I’ve already talked about this, but PVK tore shit up in that 1500 Free! I was like “Dayum! Where did that come from?!” I am so proud of him. Like seriously! He went from the label of “relay swimmer” back in 2004, to a bonafide stud in multiple individual events! He could come home from Beijing with 4 medals! And while I was ecstatic for Pete, I couldn’t help but be sad for Erik. I don’t know what happened with him. His prelim time would have put him on the team for this event! We watched that race with his parents and the Vanderkaay and we all saw how Bob was trying to get him to slow down, but he didn’t. Did he maybe expend too much energy? I don’t know. All I know is that I kept waiting for him to make his move, like he usually does, but he never did. Thank goodness he grabbed that last spot for the 800 Free Relay!
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Ok, so I totally can’t believe that this thing is over tomorrow! I remember last Sunday when I was like “this is going to be a long week”. Not the case at all! When spending time with friends and covering fast swimming, time always flies by!

So what went on today?

YAY for Margaret Hoelzer breaking the 200 Back World record. She’s had quite the 15 month period, hasn’t she? She went from being the standout US 200 female backstroker, to the American record holder (at Worlds last year), to World Record holder tonight. Awesome! Great for her! She’s really come along!

I absolutely could not predict the 50 Free. Like many others, I changed my predictions every few hours. So, when it came time for that final, I just decided that I’d let it play out and not try to predict anything. It was easier since Paul wasn’t with us to demand our guesses on who made the team. And I’m not going to lie, we missed his company during finals. We’ve gotten used to watching most of them with him. Today, he was on deck and NBC was filming him during Katie’s 800 Free final.

Speaking of The Hoff, she totally tried to get us kicked out of the Qwest Center this afternoon. And we’re going to remember that! She’s also a horrible girlfriend. But don’t worry about her. I gave her some expert relationship advice and she should be ok in the future. She may get her “free pass” at the Swim Aids revoked if she continues this nonsense! We’re watching you, Hoff! We’re also still laughing at how the security guy didn’t even know who she was. I’m thinking “um, that’s Katie Hoff dude. Remember her name. You’re going to hear it A LOT” But he’ll realize the error of his ways soon enough.

We watched the final 2 men’s 1500 Free prelim heats with Mama Vanderkaay. We thought it was time to hang out with her again, so after we came back to the pool, after our nap, she went at sat with her, Papa VK and the Vendts. I know I sound like a broken record, but talking with her is a pleasure for us. we jump at the opp to socialize with her!

And I’m sorry. After the 50 Free, I was so not about to sit for 2+ hours watching 1500 Free heats of people I don’t cover on Swim Stars. I came back just in time for PVK’s race like a good girl. And how great was Erik Vendt’s time? Wow! Coach Bob kept trying to tell him to slow down and after the race Erik said he didn’t really want to go that fast, he just felt good. Can’t hate on that, can you?

And about Lia Neal breaking the 13-14 NAG record in the 50 Free prelims? Pretty cool. It’s nice to see minorities excelling in the pool. Maybe Cullen won’t have to hold that banner along for much longer!

Dara Torres amazes me. And so does Jessica Hardy. I mean, how often do you see a breaststroker that’s extremely successful in the sprint freestyles? Not very often, but Jess is doin tha damn thing. What doesn’t make me happy is all the talk about Dara with regards to doping. People are so cynical. I don’t even want to talk about it. So I won’t.

What about after finals?

Well, we went to “Swimmer Central” again. And, by Swimmer Central, I mean Farrell’s. Everyone and their mama was there again. Well, not exactly. We feel like there were more people there last night and we definitely didn’t hear any “GTFO” orders. We also didn’t see the “drunk girl” that entertained us with her lack of balance and common sense. We’re hoping to go out on a good note tomorrow. I invited some of my young’un friends to join me at Farrell’s and they came through. I’m not going to call them out because I don’t want them to be accused of anything by judgemental and overbearing people. But, they know who they are, and I thank them for coming out tonight!

Sir Phelps even made a late appearance before last call. He showed up alone. It was weird for him.

We’re beyond ecstatic that we get to sleep in tomorrow. Sleeping in is one of my favorite activities. If sleeping were an Olympic event, I would be the World Record Holder. Don’t even think you can challenge me, because you can’t. I would pwn you.

Later all!

So I realized that I didn’t do one of these yesterday and now, unfortunately, the days are starting to blur together. So here goes on another edition of “Tales From The Deck”

After tonight’s session we felt extreme sadness. I’m talking like being on the verge of tears. Why, you ask? Because T-Dub!! finished 3rd in the men’s 200 Fly, thus not making the Olympic Team. I don’t know if there was anyone else in the meet we wanted on the team more than him, so when Gil Stovall swam the race of his life (props to him, that was badass!) we knew Davis’ chances at punching a ticket for Beijing were reduced to zero. But he left it all in the pool. That was his best time. For our own selfish reasons, we want him to continue one more year — like a couple of his teammates — but we understand if he’s ready to move on. Seeing how upset his mom (whom we adore) was after the race, was almost too much to bear.

And the sadness didn’t end with T-Dub!! It also extended to Miss Kaitlin, a regular Swim Aid reader. She’s been fighting a string of health maladies and injuries in recent months, the after effects causing her to lose critical strength and stamina. But, she’s been dealing with it like a champ and with the smile we’ve all come to love. She’s going to be in the AquaZone Friday, so everyone go, say “hi”, and wish her well! And please know that she’s ok. She wants people to know she’s not on suicide watch or anything.

Other National Team veterans who look to be on the outside looking in include Tara Kirk, Rachel Komisarz, and Neil Walker. Both Tara and Neil were regular Team USA captains. So this is going to be an adjustment. Tara has another race in the 200 Breast, but with such a deep women’s field, you just never know! We wish her good luck in that race!

Today’s session really broke our hearts though. There were a lot of happy moments, but I think the sad outweighed the good from our point of view. We were elated at Allison Schmitt and Caroline Burckle making the team. I’ve called Allison to the team before, and as recently as last night. She’s such a great kid and we love how her personality calms others before races. She was classic in her press conference tonight. Classic. It didn’t even sink in that she was on the relay until that presser when a reporter asked her about it.

I’m going to put the rest of this post behind a cut because it is looooooong as hell. I’m not kidding! So get to clickin’ to read on.

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