Good morning (or evening, depending on which side of the globe you're reading this on) sports fans! Today marks not only the birthday of our great nation (birthplace of my beloved Dairy Queen and mastermind behind the intellectually stimulating television program known as Say Yes to the Dress) but also the beginning of the 2015 World University Games swimming competition. First, as always, I want to stop and thank everyone for the positive feedback I've been getting about this blog. I really didn't think anyone was going to read this when I started writing it, so it's encouraging to know I'm not just jabbering into empty cyberspace over here. One of the coaches actually approached me today and told me how much he enjoyed reading this blog. When he first told me he'd read my blog, I started panicking because I was terrified USA Swimming was about to sue me for unauthorized sarcastic commentary on a sponsored international trip. I was overwhelmingly relieved when I realized I was not, in fact, going to have to attempt to put my hypothetical legal degree to good use before even earning it (Law school admissions, if you're reading this, ACCEPT ME) , and ended up taking his suggestion and adding "most marvelous" to today's title.
A quick note- after re-reading the previous entries, I've realized that among other things, I've been making an alarming number of typos. I would like to reassure you all that I have 1) taken an English class at the university level and am capable of using grammar properly and 2) will do everything I can to avoid making any more of said typos in the immediate future. If you're interested in proofreading my entries for me, let me know, because reading my own writing makes me cringe almost as much as the memory of my first day of fifth grade when I passed gas (LOUDLY) while standing up and introducing myself in music class. To this day, I have not lived the incident down.
ANYWAYS. Let's discuss the meet, shall we?
Disclaimer: I'm writing the initial bulk of this blog post after prelims with the intent to come back and add on a summary of finals after the session tonight. As the meet picks up and my swim draws closer, I can't promise that I will keep this up, but I will do my best to keep posting at least something every few days.
I will be the first to tell you that I'm completely new to international competition (I probably don't need to tell you, though, because it's generally written all over my face when I do something incredibly awkward as, say, strolling into the mens locker room because I read the sign wrong, as I did this morning) and thought that this mornings session was AWESOME! Before every event, they play a little bit of intro music (which one of the boys compared to the "Price is Right" theme song) and flash what event is coming up next on the scoreboard. They say some things in other languages, and then the first heat walks out and things get under way. I'm not sure if I like this whole walking out every heat thing. As a spectator, its great but as a participant, it might stress me out (you could also apply this school of thought to the 400 IM). I'm that girl that needs to basically have a yoga class behind her block before every race and enjoys stretching for like five minutes, so I'll probably be sprinting behind the blocks while everyone else is walking casually.
There is, to put it politely, a WIDE range of ability in the competitors here. This morning, I saw everything from a 40 in the men's 50 fly to a sub 4:40 400 IM on the women's side (spoiler: it was one of my roommates). As I've already mentioned several times, I'm about as culturally aware as a pile of bricks, so I was pleasantly surprised to see just how many countries have swimming at the collegiate level. Did I know Qatar had college swimming? No. Did I know Qatar had swimming at all? No. Did I even know how to spell Qatar before my computer corrected me 4.5 seconds ago? Take a guess. It's eye opening to see how swimming varies around the world.
How did team USA do this morning? Pretty well, but how could we do any less on the fourth of July, THE most patriotic day of the year? I didn't get a chance to watch all of the races, but what I did see looked pretty good! In both the 400 IM and the 200 back, the American women are seated first and third. Shout out to my aforementioned roommate, Sarah, for going a best time to snag the top seat of the 400 IM tonight. Both the men's and women's 400 free relays are first going into their finals after dominating their heats in prelims. I'm going to wrap up the prelims recap there to save space for tonight, and because when I talk about swimming too cheerily for long periods of time it makes me want to slap myself.
FINALS RECAP: Tonight's finals went awesome! I won't go into specific times (since if you're a true swim stalker I know you'll look them up yourself) but everyone swam really well and we had a great time in the stands. My favorite race of the night was by far the women's 400 IM in which Sarah and Hali went 1-3, respectively. Even though I know that both of them have awesome back halves I was still getting armpit sweat inducing anxiety during their race. Alternately, both of the 400 free relays dominated their heats, which was slightly less stressful to watch. The girls even broke the meet record!
The most important race of the night though, took place after finals. The buses have been running spottily at best to and from the pool, and tonight when we left finals there was a crowd of about 80 people waiting to leave the pool without a bus in sight. Tension was thick and emotions were running high. We'd been advised by our coaches to be aggressive when getting on the buses so Team USA was ready to board the buses and roll to dinner. Unfortunately, it appeared that the coach of every single country had given their swimmers the same advice. A single bus pulled into the parking lot, and we all actually chased it until it became apparent that it was doing a u-turn and wasn't going to pick any of us up any time soon. When the bus to the village DID arrive, getting on was absolute chaos. A few of my teammates compared it to the "Mean Girls" scene where everyone fights, but to me it was more like the scene in "The Lion King" where Mufasa falls into the stampede. People were pushing and shoving and I barely made it onto the bus with my life. Key takeaways: don't be afraid to shove your way onto a bus when dinnertime is at stake. Also, don't underestimate small Russian men.
Unfortunately, I don't have time to post any pictures tonight because I would really rather go faceplant into my bed. It's been a LONG day, but I promise I'll post an obnoxious amount of pictures tomorrow. Happy Fourth of July, and everyone in America: please eat an obnoxious amount of potato chips and watermelon for me!
A quick note- after re-reading the previous entries, I've realized that among other things, I've been making an alarming number of typos. I would like to reassure you all that I have 1) taken an English class at the university level and am capable of using grammar properly and 2) will do everything I can to avoid making any more of said typos in the immediate future. If you're interested in proofreading my entries for me, let me know, because reading my own writing makes me cringe almost as much as the memory of my first day of fifth grade when I passed gas (LOUDLY) while standing up and introducing myself in music class. To this day, I have not lived the incident down.
ANYWAYS. Let's discuss the meet, shall we?
Disclaimer: I'm writing the initial bulk of this blog post after prelims with the intent to come back and add on a summary of finals after the session tonight. As the meet picks up and my swim draws closer, I can't promise that I will keep this up, but I will do my best to keep posting at least something every few days.
I will be the first to tell you that I'm completely new to international competition (I probably don't need to tell you, though, because it's generally written all over my face when I do something incredibly awkward as, say, strolling into the mens locker room because I read the sign wrong, as I did this morning) and thought that this mornings session was AWESOME! Before every event, they play a little bit of intro music (which one of the boys compared to the "Price is Right" theme song) and flash what event is coming up next on the scoreboard. They say some things in other languages, and then the first heat walks out and things get under way. I'm not sure if I like this whole walking out every heat thing. As a spectator, its great but as a participant, it might stress me out (you could also apply this school of thought to the 400 IM). I'm that girl that needs to basically have a yoga class behind her block before every race and enjoys stretching for like five minutes, so I'll probably be sprinting behind the blocks while everyone else is walking casually.
There is, to put it politely, a WIDE range of ability in the competitors here. This morning, I saw everything from a 40 in the men's 50 fly to a sub 4:40 400 IM on the women's side (spoiler: it was one of my roommates). As I've already mentioned several times, I'm about as culturally aware as a pile of bricks, so I was pleasantly surprised to see just how many countries have swimming at the collegiate level. Did I know Qatar had college swimming? No. Did I know Qatar had swimming at all? No. Did I even know how to spell Qatar before my computer corrected me 4.5 seconds ago? Take a guess. It's eye opening to see how swimming varies around the world.
How did team USA do this morning? Pretty well, but how could we do any less on the fourth of July, THE most patriotic day of the year? I didn't get a chance to watch all of the races, but what I did see looked pretty good! In both the 400 IM and the 200 back, the American women are seated first and third. Shout out to my aforementioned roommate, Sarah, for going a best time to snag the top seat of the 400 IM tonight. Both the men's and women's 400 free relays are first going into their finals after dominating their heats in prelims. I'm going to wrap up the prelims recap there to save space for tonight, and because when I talk about swimming too cheerily for long periods of time it makes me want to slap myself.
FINALS RECAP: Tonight's finals went awesome! I won't go into specific times (since if you're a true swim stalker I know you'll look them up yourself) but everyone swam really well and we had a great time in the stands. My favorite race of the night was by far the women's 400 IM in which Sarah and Hali went 1-3, respectively. Even though I know that both of them have awesome back halves I was still getting armpit sweat inducing anxiety during their race. Alternately, both of the 400 free relays dominated their heats, which was slightly less stressful to watch. The girls even broke the meet record!
The most important race of the night though, took place after finals. The buses have been running spottily at best to and from the pool, and tonight when we left finals there was a crowd of about 80 people waiting to leave the pool without a bus in sight. Tension was thick and emotions were running high. We'd been advised by our coaches to be aggressive when getting on the buses so Team USA was ready to board the buses and roll to dinner. Unfortunately, it appeared that the coach of every single country had given their swimmers the same advice. A single bus pulled into the parking lot, and we all actually chased it until it became apparent that it was doing a u-turn and wasn't going to pick any of us up any time soon. When the bus to the village DID arrive, getting on was absolute chaos. A few of my teammates compared it to the "Mean Girls" scene where everyone fights, but to me it was more like the scene in "The Lion King" where Mufasa falls into the stampede. People were pushing and shoving and I barely made it onto the bus with my life. Key takeaways: don't be afraid to shove your way onto a bus when dinnertime is at stake. Also, don't underestimate small Russian men.
Unfortunately, I don't have time to post any pictures tonight because I would really rather go faceplant into my bed. It's been a LONG day, but I promise I'll post an obnoxious amount of pictures tomorrow. Happy Fourth of July, and everyone in America: please eat an obnoxious amount of potato chips and watermelon for me!