Libby Lenton is not a morning person and neither is anybody else on the Australian National Swim Team.

In late October the International Olympic Committee granted a request to NBC to move the swim finals of the 2008 Beijing Olympics to mornings so as to accommodate NBC's desire to broadcast them live in prime time.

Australian's were not stoked! Ian Thorpe, Grant Hackett, Kieren Perkins and other "non-Americans", as the online addition of the Herald Tribune called them, sent a carefully worded letter to the IOC stating, "We suck in the morning".

An unidentified source deep within the IOC told this blogger, "We, the IOC, have 2.2 billion reasons to hold all Olympic finals in the morning and they all contain the name George Washington."

It's almost summer in Australia and Australian Nationals are in just a few weeks. [Go Ian Thorpe.] The IOC decision to hold finals in the A.M. has Libby Lenton so concerned that she suggested Oz Nationals should have their finals in the morning as well. My gosh, is she thinking that it will take Australian swimmers a year-and-and-half to get motivated or capable enough to swim a fast race in the morning?

Michael Phelps weighed in on the IOC decision and his comments were stated like a true champion: "If you make the Olympic team and you can't come and be ready to swim in the morning, if you can't get excited to do that, give your spot to someone else." Read it here.

Memo to Libby, Grant, Kieren and Ian: Michael Phelps can hear you and he feeding on your fears.

Hey Boss, it worked twice

Swimming World Magazine: "NBC Morning Finals Decision Damages Olympic Games; IOC Breaks Its Code of Ethics... anti-American fallout continues to build and simmer across Europe and beyond."

Cry babies! Where is this stone tablet or burning bush that decries that an athlete can only race in the afternoon or later? I will summise this debate into a single sentence: NBC wants drama, the athletes and coaches want records.

This hyperbolic Swimming World article, or actually a de facto rant, tries to sell that the Olympic Games will produce no great performances or world records if finals are held in the morning. Nonsense, I say but Phelps said it best last July at Nationals: "If you make the Olympic team and you can't come and be ready to swim in the morning, if you can't get excited to do that, give your spot to someone else."

"Texas Swimming" blog spanks 'Timed Finals'

My dad started out as a used car salesman and eventually became an editor of some sort for the Hollywood Reporter. Every morning before school he would get me up at 5:30 A.M., throw some clothes at me, and we would drive from newsstand to newsstand to see which one had gotten the Hollywood Reporter or the Daily Variety first. He would hand me 50 cents so I could buy them for him and then we would return home for breakfast.

At the kitchen table he would underline sentences from the Army Archerd column in The Daily Variety, and then do the same thing to the guy who wrote the gossip column for The Hollywood Reporter.

One morning, I got fed up with getting up so early so at breakfast I asked "what are you doing, you underline these sentences every morning?" He replied back, "I am writing my column." And I said, "No you not, you're copying, you're cheating!" It didn't go over well at the kitchen table but ultimately my dad plagiarized his way into entertainment journalism.

Well, that is what Scott Goldblatt, the editor of Timed Finals, is being accused of doing by the swim blog, Texas Swimming. I have accused him of it too and I understand that a particular writer for the Australian press is getting wind of this sort of nonsense as well.

All Scott has to do to alleviate this criticism is to ensure he credits his sources. If he doesn't, he and the parent company of Timed Finals, the Wasserman Media Group, are going to become irrelevant to swimming.

My dad shamefully got away with it circa the 1960's, but in the age of the internet whereas everything is databased, that isn't going to happen.

Here is a link to the Texas Blog spanking. The photo to the right is the Texas swimmer himself: [Link]

"SwimSwam" obviously plagiarized and the person that plagiarized from "Swimming World" should issue an apology ASAP

Above are two screenshots, one from Swimming World and the one below it is from SwimSwam. (Click to enlarge.)

On June 27th 2013: Swimming World published the following article: [Link]

On June 30th 2013: SwimSwam copy/pasted the above article from Swimming World and by making just a few modifications called it their own. [Link]

SwimSwam obviously plagiarized and the person that plagiarized from Swimming World should issue an apology as soon as possible and the article should be taken down with said apology in it's place.

I know all about plagiarism, not only have I had work stolen from this blog twice that I know of and I watched my father go from a used car salesman in the San Fernando Valley to the International Editor of the Hollywood Reporter.

I wrote this blog post and I am updating here about my father and his plagiarism some years ago. It applies to this recent incident and the behavior of a lazy writer at SwimSwam:

Texas Swimmer spanks Timed Finals [For Plagiarism]

My dad started out as a used car salesman and eventually became the international editor for the Hollywood Reporter. He had a syndicated radio program in Australia and Lee Marvin once tried to punch him out. A pilot TV show was made from one of his books, and he broke the story that Walt Disney was dying of cancer before the mainstream media knew how ill he was.

Every morning before school he would get me up at 5:30 A.M., throw some clothes at me, and we would drive from newsstand to newsstand to see which one had gotten the Hollywood Reporter or the Daily Variety first. He would hand me 50 cents so I could buy them for him and then we would return home for breakfast.

At the kitchen table or sometimes a diner he would underline sentences from the Army Archerd column in The Daily Variety, and then do the same thing to the guy who wrote the gossip column for The Hollywood Reporter. I forgot his name.

One morning, I got fed up with getting up so early so at breakfast I asked "what are you doing, you underline these sentences every morning?" He replied back, "I am writing my column." And I said, "No you not, you're copying, you're cheating!" (I was in the 2nd grade.) It didn't go over well and I never asked again. Ultimately my dad plagiarized his way into entertainment journalism. 

Well, that is what Scott Goldblatt, the editor of Timed Finals, is being accused of doing by the swim blog, Texas Swimming. I have accused him of it too and I understand that a particular writer for the Australian press is getting wind of this sort of nonsense as well.

All Scott has to do to alleviate this criticism is to ensure he credits his sources. If he doesn't, he and the parent company of Timed Finals, the Wasserman Media Group, are going to become irrelevant to swimming.

My dad shamefully got away with it circa the 1960's, but in the age of the internet whereas everything is databased, that isn't going to happen.

Here is a link to the Texas Blog spanking. The photo to the right is the Texas swimmer himself: [Link]

Remember the "morning finals scandal" when the Australians and the Europeans were throwing tantrums about them?

Moving forward, maybe all Olympic swim finals should be held in the morning if the men's 4x100 relay is any indication.

'Sportsnet' took 'Timed Finals' off their link list!

I went to Sportnet.com to see if I could find some swim videos; I found some here: Link, which I cannot embed them. However, something odd happened when I visited the site this morning versus when I visited the site tonight.

Here is some background: The Wasserman Group owns Sportnet, they are also the same people that have a marketing deal with USA swimming. This is what surprised me: Lo and behold, this morning they listed TF or Timed Finals as one of their properties; meaning they own them. However, now it is gone!

What also is a bit weird is that they list USA Swimming as one of their properties but how can USA Swimming be a property of a corporation when it is suppose to be a non-profit or non-governmental body? Freudian slip or bad grammar.

I cannot provide a photo because I am afraid they will send legal ninjas after me like they did to the people that posted that YouTube video that got removed. Reference: [Link]

Hail Cesar Cielo - the greatest freestyle sprinter of all time!

In a legal, fully approved, FINA swimsuit, Cesar Cielo, will probably hold the world record title for the 50-meter free for at least another 1/2-century!

Who will dare call him a cheater for wearing a "shiny suit"?

Born in Brazil, trained in Americas; [Plural], Cielo confirmed at the Brazilian Long Course Meters Championship that he is the planet's best 50-meter free swimmer and will be for a very long time.

I am so sorry that the aforementioned statement will hurt Eamon Sullivan, Libby Trickett, Mark Schubert, and Bob Bowman's feelings but that is the way both Arena and Cesar Cielo roll.

From Swimming World:

SAO PAULO, Brazil, December 18. DURING morning finals today at the Brazil Long Course Championships, Cesar Cielo beat the world record in the men's 50 free.

After clocking a 21.02 during prelims last night to put Fred Bousquet's global standard of 20.94 from April on notice, Cielo clipped the record with a blazing fast time of 20.91. Cielo's best time heading into this meet had been a South American record of 21.08 clocked at the World Championships this summer.

Cielo returned in the men's 400 free relay with a leadoff time of 47.29 as Cielo, Andre Daudt, Fernando Da Silva and Gabriel Mangabeira won the race with a meet-record time of 3:16.30.

[Link]

Australian Swimming Championships: Ian Thorpe swims a 1:49.16 to make the semi-finals in the 200m-free!

He was "storming it" too till the last 50-meters. He just might make London...

From the Chicago Tribune:

"It's a pretty decent time. I'm happy with that swim this morning," the 29-year-old said in a brief poolside interview before heading off to prepare for the semi-finals (0912 GMT) in the evening session at the South Australia Aquatic and Leisure Centre in Adelaide.

Should Thorpe make Saturday evening's final but miss out on a berth for the individual event reserved for the winner and runner-up, a top-six finish will at least ensure he is considered for selection to the four-member freestyle relay team.

[Link]

Trials recap: This paragraph from Sports Illustrated disturbs me!

Having lost a parent and a few other family members to smoking related illnesses will probably explain my bias when I read about a swimmer and a noted coach who smoked cigars post trials. I am so not impressed. Any tobacco product when used as directed or even rarely will harm you. Remember that kids.

From Sports Illustrated:

"... There was a "Come back! Come back!" Davis Tarwater, who had finished fourth in the 200 fly in the 2004 trials and third in the 2008 trials, left Omaha Monday morning empty-handed again. The 28-year-old had made the finals in each of his three events -- the 200 free, and the 200 and 100 butterfly -- but he had failed to do better than fourth in any of them. On Sunday night, he sat on an Omaha rooftop smoking cigars with his coach, Dave Marsh, and talking about life beyond swimming, from which he had just retired. The next morning he broke his training diet with a slice of airport pizza and boarded his plane for Charlotte. When he landed he heard that Phelps, a former teammate at Club Wolverine in Michigan, had dropped the 200 free, an event Tarwater had finished in seventh, one spot out of the relay pool. Twenty minutes later Marsh called in tears. Phelps' exit had created a space for him on the 4x200 free relay. At long last, Tarwater was an Olympian. ..." 

[Link]

Olympic open water qualifier venue was today!

I couldn't post any of this sooner since I was stuck at work.

You can click on the above images to enlarge them. The venue almost looks like an enlarged swimming pool and Steve Munatones of 10kSwim.com is there and gave hourly reports at his Twitter page. If you sign up for a Twitter account you can read his play-by-play from beginning to end of the 10k event: [Link]

All of the above photos/maps were sent to me from China.

Now Steve is havng internet troubles in China accessing his blog hence the Twitter account which has worked out to be a great solution. Here is what Steve sent me this morning:

Dear All,

I emailed you via Twitter because I thought you might be interested in receiving live updates from Beijing on the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim qualification race.

I will be at the race “twittering” on my Blackberry to anyone who chooses to opt-in at www.twitter.com. That is, I will be writing online updates of the race as it happens so you can follow the race stroke-for-stroke. These updates will be posted a few seconds after I write them on my Twitter and Facebook pages. The updates can also be sent directly to your cell phones via text messages, if you so chose.

Because the race is not televised outside of China and there is no live online streaming of the race, these “tweets” are one alternative to learning about the race as it happens.

My “tweets” (i.e., a text message of less than 140 characters sent via Twitter) will be sent 5-10 minutes apart during much of the 1 hour and 55 minute race. I will send the tweets more often as the race develops and gets closer to the finish or anything interesting happens like a race feeding or yellow card.

Please note that if you do not have an unlimited text messaging plan on your telephone, then you may not want to participate in this test. That is, if I sent you 20-25 messages, this might cost you some money (usually 15 cents per message for many plans in the U.S. ).

You must opt-in to receive this service. If you do not want to participate, no problem.

Please note that this is a test. If Murphy (as in Murphy’s Law or “if anything can go wrong, it will”) shows up in Beijing tomorrow, then I apologize in advance if the test fails. Fortunately, I tried it out today at the Olympic venue, and all systems seem to be a go.

The women’s race will start at 6:00 pm PT on Friday (or 9 am on Saturday in China ) – I will start sending tweets around 5:00 pm PT on Friday. The men’s race will start at 6:00 pm PT on Saturday – I will start sending tweets around 5:00 pm PT on Saturday.

The women’s race is particularly interesting for the American team because only one young, talented American swimmer will qualify – and Chloe Sutton and Kirsten Groome are tough courageous competitors. If you have time or interest, I wrote a blog about this featured match race between Chloe and Kirsten at www.10Kswimmer.com. It is truly a “race-within-a-race”. It can be viewed as a “swim-off” for a coveted spot in the Olympic 10K finals.

If you know of others who may be interested in participating in this experiment, please feel free to inform them.

Please note that I will not send you non-swimming related tweets. The purpose of this experiment is simply to inform you of some of the most exciting and pressure-packed races in the annals of open water swimming history.

Lastly, the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim venue is beautiful. Under bright blue skies, the water temperature is between 68-72°F (depending on the depth of the water) and the venue looks gorgeous. Supposedly, the venue will be sold out for this weekend’s races.

Steven Munatones in Beijing