The Arena Pro Swim Series is back up and running in 2015, with the first of three days in the books. Here are 5 big things we noticed, and 3 you pointed out in our comments section:
From Us:
1. Conger rocks the house: It’s hard to find any other story tonight that tops the massive 100 fly that Texas sophomore Jack Conger came up with. Conger is a highly-versatile talent, and one of the better-known young stars of USA Swimming, but coming off of a disappointing freshman campaign in Austin, this is a huge momentum boost for the young man. His 51.64 is a lifetime-best by almost a second, and would have ranked him 8th in the world last year.
2. Ledecky surprisingly unsurprising: World record-holder Katie Ledecky is an odd conundrum, in that expectations each time she swims are sky-high, yet she still manages to surprise a huge number of swimming fans with each performance. Tonight was no exception, as Ledecky nearly cracked four minutes in the 400 free in her first meet of long course season. Keep in mind that no woman in history had ever been under 4:00 in textile before Ledecky did it last summer. Also consider that Ledecky is somewhat still in “short course mode,” coming off of Winter Nationals and with her last-ever high school championship meet season ahead of her. Swimming fans basically believe Ledecky can do anything, and yet she still manages to surprise us on a regular basis.
3. NCAA Preview: The side narrative of a very individual meet is the team battle between the Cal and Texas men, who will likely be fighting for the NCAA crown in a few months. Neither side has a full team, but the top dogs from each squad are in Austin (where Cal won last year’s NCAA title) to give us a tantalizing preview. Here’s a quick look at how many swimmers each team put into the A- and B-finals of tonight’s meet:
| Texas | Cal | |||
| Event | A finalists | B finalists | A finalists | B finalists |
| 100 free | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 200 breast | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 400 free | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 100 fly | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| TOTALS: | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
Cal seemed to be outdoing the Longhorns until the 100 fly, where Texas is absurdly strong. It’ll be especially interesting to watch the individual matchups later in the meet, most notably a red-hot Conger vs Cal’s star sophomore Ryan Murphy in both backstrokes.
4. Lochte left out: It’s not often that Ryan Lochte shows up to a Pro Swim Series event and misses the prize money positions, but that’s the case tonight. Lochte was 4th in the 100 fly, his only event of the night. But that feels less like an indictment of Lochte’s performance than it does a compliment to how quick that event was tonight. Lochte was a 53.23, which is a solid early-season performance, and almost a full second faster than he was at this meet in 2013. (Lochte didn’t swim this meet last year, as he was still recovering from a knee injury).
5. First look at the Coventry comeback: The relay events tend to fly under the radar at these Pro Swim Series events, but tonight’s 4×100 free relay featured a notable split. Zimbabwe Olympian Kirsty Coventry, making her first meet appearance in several years, swam a leg of the winning SwimMAC relay alongside Kathleen Baker, Katie Meili and Becca Postoll. Coventry was 56.72, one of the better splits in the field. Freestyle has little bearing on Coventry’s comeback, but her split does suggest that she’s in pretty good swimming shape with both of her backstroke swims still ahead of her.
From You:
6. Ledecky’s tempo: Commenter Luigi notes one of the great mysteries of Katie Ledecky:
She swims the 400 like a much shorter race. No “pause” in the stroke. I dont know how she does it.
-Luigi
Our take: Ledecky’s furious tempo is still one of the great mind-boggling aspects of her dominance, and it’s also a big reason why she appears to have the ability to contribute to the U.S. National Team even down to the 200- and 100-meter distances.
7. Michael Andrew riding the 200 breast: Commenter Justin Thompson notices that 15-year-old Michael Andrew paired a couple disappointing events with one very solid one:
Rough morning for Michael Andrew in the 100m free and 100m fly, but put up a decent 200m breast in both sessions.
-Justin Thompson
Our take: Indeed, it seems like Andrew sometimes stagnates in one stroke while simultaneously finding his groove in another. His 2:16.76 in the 200 breast was a lifetime-best, and Andrew seems to be really finding his groove in that event lately: his two most recent PRs (excluding a 500/1000/1650 combo he swam last week) were also in the 200 breast. Andrew broke his personal-best short course time at Winter Juniors, then set a PR in the long course event at the long course time trials the next day.
3. All Quiet on the Texas Front: Commenter Bobo Gigi laments the lack of a big-meet atomosphere in Austin on day 1:
Is it a nightmare or is it real?
It looks like there’s almost nobody in the stands.
With Ledecky, Adrian, Hosszu, Beisel, Grevers or Lochte in the water!…
Absolutely no noise at all during the races. That’s real unfortunately.
-Bobo Gigi
Our take: Swimming fans, if you’re within driving distance of Austin this weekend, get in your cars and get ready to make some noise! There’s no question a field this loaded will deliver everything you’re looking for in entertainment value. Let’s step it up, swim fans!
Congers 100 fly was spectacular, but to call it the highlight of the night is ludicrous. Ledeckys near sub 4 minute 400 on a completely higher level. Just because one swim was a surprise, doesn’t make it the main highlight.
You’re right.
The “problem” with Katie Ledecky is that she gets us used to amazing things and it becomes common but it’s not common.
Conger’s swim is great because unexpected.
But yes; Ledecky’s swim is of course the swim of the night.
Empty stands for a swim meet OR stands with just parents, relatives, and friends of swimmers…Why is anyone surprised by this? For example, do you know anyone outside of swimming that would come to a Grand Prix/Pro meet to wach a few heats of 1500M freestyle?
Talk just for USA. In France it would be sold-out.
And who talks about a few heats of 1500 free? I talk about 3 evening sessions of 2 hours with a show between the races.
And if American people can digest 3 hours of baseball with a big action every 30 minutes, I think they are able to digest 2 hours with some of the best swimmers in the world.
I talked about the lack of people in the stands but these Grand Prix meets also need seriously to reconsider their format in my opinion.
Not the first time I say that but I really miss the previous format of Grand Prix with C, B and A-Finals in that order with a podium between each event.
It goes well too fast now. No time to breathe after a great performance. Another event has already started. Yesterday the main session was over after 1h10/1h15.
And we used to see the faces of swimmers on the podium. Happy faces. Anger faces. Tired faces. Funny faces. It was much more human.
Today it looks more like assembly-line work for… Read more »
I agree whole heartedly with BOBO ! this feels like an empty hall especially with no DJ playing music to pump up the atmosphere and athletes before the race . That is a Big Miss in my opinion .
Loosing it’s former format with it’s advantages won’t give more credit for that amazing sport – Even if that was not the original intention . We maybe won’t be watching live anymore . For me , the live feeds stops after 20 seconds anyway , so i won’t bother watching live anymore . It’s fine .
It feels a bit like a compressed format while it’s way more enjoyable with more time between races .
We will see… Read more »
Agreed. I get that they are trying to condense the finals timeline a bit, but they went too far and now it just feels like prelims. At least give the A-final the rock star treatment with walk-up music and introductions before they get on the blocks.
Jack Conger ; thumbs up ! i was waiting him to deliver some great swims on LC one day .
It’s done and i wish him to go further this year . In Rio , those youngsters will be very important to Team Usa . Seliskar is also on the rise . Shine on guys .
My goodness, I forgot you repeated some of our live comments. 🙄
That’s smart and puts in the light how we vieuw and enjoy swimming .
Yes, it’s cool.
But we need to be a little bit more careful about what we say. 😆
Thanks to SwimSwam for selecting my comment 🙂
@RTB true, but, alas, Gregorio neither has the technique nor the base speed of Katie Ledecky.
@Crissy: if I had the chance to see Adrian, Ervin, Lochte, Ledecky and so on swim all in a single day, I would show up any day of the week. Texas fans must be spoiled. These are Olympic stars!
Re: the Ledecky tempo thing: Evans was a high turnover swimmer too. Guess it works.
Happy to see Conger getting it together finally. Always thought he could be a world class swimmer.
We know for many years he has everything to be a world-class swimmer, even an olympic gold medal contender one day. No doubts about that.
He has now to choose 2 or 3 events to focus on.
Yeah, he has had the potential since the age grouper days. But after last year I was worried he had burned out or something. Glad to see he made adjustments and getting it done.