The United States sounded an ominous warning for next year's world swimming championships by dominating the Pan Pacific Meeting that ended on Sunday. The Americans, with Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte and Jessica Hardy leading the way, ended the five-day championships with an impressive haul of 28 gold medals, comfortably outclassing Australia, the other traditional powerhouse in the sport, who totalled just six.
While the Australians can expect to shine at the Commonwealth Games in India in October, they under-performed at the Pan Pacs and clearly have much to do if they are to challenge the US at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai. Lochte took six gold medals and narrowly failed to improve his own world record in the men's 200 metres individual medley. Phelps, the multiple Olympic medallist, came away with five golds, despite being well short of his best, while Hardy finished with four golds.
"We have a good picture of where the team is right now and it's pretty good," Bob Bowman, the US assistant coach, said. "We know we need to improve for next year, and we certainly need to improve for London [the 2012 Olympic Games]. But this gives us a good a start." Bowman was happy with the progress achieved by Phelps, who came into the Pan Pacs saying he was "probably between a four and five out of 10" on his fitness.
"I have a clear picture of where he's at and what we need to do to be ready for the World Championships," Bowman said of Phelps. Phelps failed to qualify for the 400 metres individual medley final after competing in the event for the first time since the 2008 Olympics, but Bowman was unconcerned. "He will be back in no time," Bowman said before referring to the burgeoning rivalry between Lochte and Phelps. "I can't wait to see those guys do the 200 [medley]."
Lochte, the world record holder, beat Phelps in the 200m medley at this month's US nationals but never got the chance for a Pan Pac repeat when Phelps withdrew to conserve energy for the 4x100 medley relay. Despite not being pushed by his compatriot, Lochte was on world record pace for the first two legs of Saturday's race before finishing in 1min 54.43 secs, the third fastest time ever. "Everyone was saying it would be a long time before a world record was broken again," said Lochte.
"I wanted to show that it's going to happen sooner than they think. Now we'll see what happens next year at worlds." While the US team flourished at the Pan Pacs with Dana Vollmer also earning four gold medals and Rebecca Soni picking up three, their rivals Australia did not live up to expectations. Stephanie Rice, a triple Olympic gold medallist, pulled out to have shoulder surgery and Eamon Sullivan, Brenton Rickard and Andrew Lauterstein all struggled in some of their main events.
"Australia has a long way to go compared with the Americans," Leigh Nugent, the Australian team coach said after his team collected an overall tally of 32 medals. The US piled up 56. "I would think if they [the US] were to race the rest of the world right now, they would dominate the whole world." * Reuters