Saturday, August 16, 2008

Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps : Two of Swimming’s greatest Legends

Last night was a history making night in swimming, as U.S. swimming Olympian, Michael Phelps tied the 36 year old record set by US swimming legend Mark Spitz in 1972 by winning seven gold medals in one Olympic game. The race last night that won him the 7th gold was the 100m butterfly, where he only won by 1/100th of a second! Astonishing! 100 butterfly was always my best event when I raced, and to put this in perspective how fast he is…I swam the butterfly, four laps of the pool (in yards) in 1:04:20, a respectably fast time for a teenage girl. Michael swims in meters ( which is longer!) 50.58 seconds! So basically if you think of a standard yard pool, he swims four lengths of that (and a little longer!) in WAY less than one minute! Seriously unbelievable!

Last night a world record was broke by Britain’s Rebecca Adlington, in the 800 freestyle which was set by Janet Evans when Rebecca was six months old! I had the exciting opportunity to meet Janet Evans, and some of the other swimming stars, back in 1996 at the Olympic trials in Indianapolis. Here is me at age 12 with Janet!

Tonight will be another exciting race! 41 year old Dara Torres will race for a medal in the 50m freestyle! She won her qualifying heat last night, so this should be fun to watch!