Sunday, December 17, 2006

Cullen Jones off the blocks wearing a Speedo Fastskin II before Nike offered him 2 million reasons and seven years to explain why Nike is a better suit.

Cullen Jones could be the next world record holder for the 50m free. I would so love it if he did so at Worlds but I'll take Beijing too. The 21.84 for the 50m free he logged at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships was less than a 1/4-of-a-second off of, Alexander Popov's , 21.64 world record. This year alone he has beaten Gary Hall, Jason Lezak and best of all he is the first African American to hold a world record in swimming after he swam a leg in the world record breaking 4x100m freestyle relay along with Michael Phelps, Jason Lezak and Neil Walker at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships.

To quote NPR: "...The victory impressed Nike enough to sign Jones to the biggest endorsement deal ever for a short-distance swimmer. He'll receive more than $2 million dollars over the next seven years." Hear the audio of this report at NPR.org [link]

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