Cheers and Jeers
Sportswriter Steve Tietz will use this blog to try to duly reward the great, praise heartily the hard-working, uncover the unsung, and take to task the spoilsport, the foul-mouth and the crass in the local prep sports scene. He'll try to remember that kids are just kids and that coaches aren't in it for the money. He'll try to gently remind parents that the kids are playing for fun, not for profit and that the officials, though occasionally human and therefore prone to error, are there to ensure fair play and not out to get anyone.
State girls swim meet still plenty quick despite rash of illness and no fast suits
This was supposed to be the year in swimming where everybody was going to be in transition mode.
New restrictions on the permeability and amount of coverage that can be had through "fast suit" technology was supposed to slow everyone down.
Combined with an enormous rash of flu-related illness running through the state this fall, it was alll looking like it would be a blah and boring girls state meet.
But don't tell that to Menomonee Falls/Hamilton coach Jim Weitzer whose top 50 freestyler Amanda Siehs missed out by .06 of a second despite a razor-quick 25.27 sectional time last Saturday.
Or explain that to Germantown coach Sara Petric, who saw mutli-time state qualifier Shannon Miller fall short in the 100 free, despite a standout 55.34 clocking.
"Without the suits and the illness, man, it's still pretty quick out there," said Warhawk coach Sara Petric, a former state champion herself while at Homestead.
And really don't talk to Brown Deer/University School co-coach Bob Van Lieshout after his 400 free relay crushed a program record in the sectional but still fell short of the Division 2 qualifying standard by .05 a second.
It seems that swimmers statewide aren't being bothered by the lack of high-powered suits very much and that they are getting over their colds quickly.
"At the top, it seems that the standards have been lifted quite a bit," Weitzer said. "It's a combination of a lot of things. Better training, better nutrition, better facilities. But in my mind, it has always come down to the desire of the athlete to better themselves. The best ones find it wherever they can."
So don't be surprised if a few state records fall this weekend when the girls Division 1 and 2 state meets are held at the UW-Madison Natatorium.
Even when not many were expected.
"All these changes are fine with me," said Homestead coach Mark Gwidt, whose team won a division I sectional title for the 10th straight year. "I wish we had done it before. Now with a whole bunch of records having been broken (with the suit technology in the last few years), we have to play catch up with the clock."
But he agrees with Weitzer that the catch-up time will go faster than most people think.
"Still, we'll have kids swimming faster with or without the suits," Gwidt said. "It's not the suit that makes the swimmer. It still comes down to the athlete."
The restrictions were made first by FINA, the international governing body of swimming and by USA Swimming, because it was felt that the sport was becoming more about the technology than the effort and talent that was put into it. The ludicrous number of records that were destroyed time and again at the 2008 US Olympic Trials and then at the Olympics themselves bore testament to that concern.
Following that decision, like dominos, all sorts of other federations followed suit (so to speak), including Wisconsin's WIAA. In doing so, an aggressive and debilitating arms race where swimmers would spend more and more on the latest and best technologies leaving some people out in the cold simply because of affordability, was stopped dead in its tracks.
According to Gwidt, the state of the art Blue 70 suits, which helped many an athlete craft a state or national record, are now illegal and can't be used anymore. Further, there were limits made to the amount of beading that could happen on the suits (the permeability factor) and that suits are of to be of one piece. No fasteners or zippers. Further restrictions limited the amount of body coverage there is, especially in men's competition suits (they have to be above the knee according to one guideline).
So with all those restrictions and with all the concern about H1N1 flu and its related maladies going about, how does Gwidt explain the tremendous depth this year in the state field, where times that might have gotten on the medal stand just a few years ago are now struggling just to make the field?
"Swimming for girls is a very popular sport," he said. "A lot of schools outside the Milwaukee and Madison areas are now able to compete much more effectively in the past because of the larger number of athletes they have to pick from."
"It's a lifelong sport that people can really enjoy."
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