Eamon Sullivan in Beijing: "...Fell into swimming's oldest trap."

I think Sullivan placed 6th in the 50-free at the Beijing Olympics because of the overwhelming talent in the pool not because he looked around to check out where Alain Bernard was.

The fact that every competitor in that final swam a :21 should validate the amount of ability and talent in the pool that day.

However, it does bring up many questions about how the swimmers swam their races in Beijing. Remember Katie Hoff, who didn't want to "break a nail" as Clay Evans noted to this blog; Milord Cavic, who looked up and lost by a 100th-of-a-second to Phelps in the 200 'fly 100-meter 'fly; and even Jason Lezak who looked over at the end of the 4x100 relay at Bernard?

From The Age.com:

Let's get this straight: Sullivan didn't choke. What he did do, however - just like Ian Thorpe in his favourite 200-metre freestyle event at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, when he was a sure thing beaten by Holland's Pieter van den Hoogenband - was fall into swimming's oldest trap.

"You see little kids when they're swimming and their coaches tell them not to look around," Sullivan says, "and they're doing breaststroke and they're in front and [he motions with his head turning like a side-show clown] they look back to see where the others are. I guess you never lose that sort of thing, and when you see someone next to you, that's when instinct tells you to try harder and that's when your technique goes. ..."

[Link]

This is how close the Beijing Olympics, 50-free final went; Hail Cesar:

21.30 - Cesar Cielo
21.45 - Amaury Leveaux
21.49 - Alain Bernard
21.62 - Ashley Callus
21.64 - Ben Wildman-Tobriner
21.65 - Eamon Sullivan
21.67 - Roland Schoeman
21.72 - Stefan Nystrand

Two long standing world records fell this weekend and I confirmed that one of the WRs was set while wearing the Speedo Lazr

I got a Swimming World News Alert today regarding Kristy Coventry from Zimbabwe who set a world record in the 200 LCM backstroke at the Missouri Grand Prix in a time of 2:06.39. The previous world record set by Krisztina Egerszegi stood for 17-years but she bested it by 0.23 seconds. I wrote Jason M. at Swimming World asking if she was wearing the new $500 Speedo Lazr at the time and he confirmed that she was.

Eamon Sullivan from Australia set a world record in the 50 LCM free at the New South Wales Swimming Championships in a time of 21.64 besting the previous record by 0.08. I don't know if he was wearing a Speedo Lazr at the time but he is a Speedo sponsored athlete.

Here is a Wiki-link of the 50 LCM world record progression which includes the names, dates, the times and the nationality of those who have held the world record in the 50 LCM: [Link]

The photo above came from a Stuff.Co.NZ article which includes four more photos of Australian swimmers wearing the Speedo Lazr and their positive comments regarding it. [Link]

I am still critical of how the suit looks; (sci-fi, a video-game-like uniform), but producing one world record or possibly two if Eamon Sullivan was wearing the suit is delivering.