A friend of our liaison officer Cora was quick with the camera when our faces popped up on the big screen in the Shanghai 2011 World Championships arena. A moment later the messages came in from Faroe Islands, that they had seen us on Eurosport. Sweet, that must be a billion or more, counting Chinese national TV and all :-)
The Speedo Pace Club is commercial yes, but has some really nice technique videos, plus an iPhone app for you to track your training, find pools nearby and do some social thing with your swim friends too. And there are blogs of famous Team USA swimmers. I like.
Here it is Dana Vollmer world champion in the 100 butterfly demonstrating how to do the Butterfly 3-3-3 drill.
And here is a drill I must confess I’ve never seen. Must be some kind of ‘competitiveness drill’. Via Jorge Aquado.
Keri-Anne Payne says that her goal was to finish in top 10 and qualify for the Olympics, and that the gold medal was just a nice added bonus. Well thanks for that, our guy was no 5 and 4, so that should be OK too :-) Via the17thman.
Press play to see the men’s 1500 freestyle final presented in google motion chart. Sun Yang’s and Grant Hackett’s record paces are in lane 4. The chart default state is set to resemble top view of the pool. However, the axis, bubble size and colours and the chart type can be modified. For example if the y-axis is set to “Split” instead of “Lane” the bubbles will trail each other up and down in a virtual ‘pace pool’.
Swimming on the TV, my expectations of China were completely wrong. Boarding at 08:50, via Helsinki to Copenhagen.
0.67 seconds from the bronze medal, 1.87 from the silver, in the 1500 freestyle. Fastest final ever, with Sun Yang setting a world record, and Pál improving his Nordic more than 10 seconds. Kis, you did good, Cochrane, you better train hard until London 2012. Happy times, even though we lost. Hsieh Hsieh Shanghai, Malmö tomorrow :-)
Our liaison officer Cora bought us a newspaper this morning, after her parents telling her that there was a story about Pál in it. The headline says “One athlete, big dream”, and they even found a photo showing his signature hand flick. Now, I don’t know exactly how many people read this paper, but since it is nation-wide, I wouldn’t be surprised if its readers outnumber us the Faroese, even counting sheep and birds :-D
Bravo Shanghai, these championships were almost flawless, and easily the best arranged (of the few) that I’ve ever encountered. The Olympics are special anyhow I guess, but the Spanish must be really worrying about living up to this in 2013, with their mañana-culture.
An Olympic qualification for a Faroese still living and training on the hard rock islands, that is a first ever. A new Nordic record also, now counting two in two events :-)
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