Pan Pacific Championships provided mixed results for Katie Hoff. After making the US World Championship team in the 200-free relay at US Nationals, she failed to final in the 400-free at the Pan Pacific Championships.Hoff had swam a 4:05.50 at Nationals but her time of 4:08.93 at Pan Pacs was too anemic to make it into the finals. Her only hope to make it on the 2011 FINA World Championship US team was for Chloe Sutton or Kate Ziegler to fail to best the time she set at US Nationals.
A strong Chloe Sutton won the final and Kate Ziegler just missed Katie Hoff's time by 200ths of a second.
Though a stinging loss for Ziegler, Kate provided no excuses for the loss. She congratulated Hoff in the press and reveled in her glory at winning the 800-meter-free. A brief "post mortem" of the race to the Washington Post reporter included Ziegler mentioning that swimming with a faster field in the finals would have inspired her to swim even faster which is an obvious direct compliment to Hoff. She mentioned that this strategy of waiting fora faster field to inspire her was going to change.
Hoff mention some anxiety symptoms to the Washington Post while waiting to see if her US Swimming Nationals time would hold up and these symptoms included shaking and feelings of anxiety. Once learning she made the cut to the World Championships all symptoms subsided.
There is a saying in Hollywood that you are only as good as your last movie. Could Kate Ziegler actually be the faster swimmer of the two and a better swimmer to have on the team at FINA World Championships? My personal bias thinks so after seeing how well Kate Ziegler swam at Pan Pacs.
4 comments:
Thought that open water disqualification for Chloe Sutton was painful. I wondered why she didn't know that she wasn't to touch the buoys so much at the turns.. something was at fault there.
As to whether Ziegler or Hoff is better to have on the team, going by the rules is fine by me in this case since there doesn't seem to be a lot between them and I still think that Hoff's history in the 400m counts for something.
I talked to someone close to her, I was a bit baffled that it was even a rule since buoys are not fixed and they float with the tide and there is generally a lot of traffic and interference around them.
I was told she did not want to want to swim on top of anybody and got crowded towards it.
Weird rule.
I see your point. I just think cumulative times may be a better indicator and produce a better result.
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