The Vortex, May 2024 – Clareburt Rattles Commonwealth Mark With 4:08.71 Win 0.01sec Shy In Sydney Open 400IM
The Vortex is SOS’ digest and soak of swimming news, views and links to noteworthy mainstream media coverage of the sport as the Paris 2024 Olympic Games approach; additions to the file made most days and collated in one monthly file.
Saturday Vortex, May 11 – Lewis Clareburt, of New Zealand, rattled his own Commonwealth record over 400m medley with a 4:08.71 victory at the Sydney Open today.
Shy of the taper he will have behind him as he takes to his blocks at the Paris 2024 Olympics in late July, Clareburt set about taking down his career best of 4:08.70, the time he clocked for the 2022 Commonwealth crown in Birmingham.
This evening at the Sydney Olympic Park Pool, he came as close as its possible to get, falling 0.01sec shy of the effort that delivered gold in England at a time he was coached by Gary Hollywood.
Circumstances have seen him move on since and today Clareburt, taper ahead of him, signalled that he has his eye on the Olympic podium in Paris, which is likely to require him to wipe couple of seconds off his best, the world record now in the hands of Léon Marchand at a crushing 4:02.50 since he broke Michael Phelps‘ last-remaining global solo standard for the 2023 World title in Fukuoka.
Clareburt is 11th fastest all-time, while among those still in the swim he is fourth swiftest, Olympic champion Chase Kalisz, 4:05.90 from 2017, and Worlds silver medallist behind Marchand in 2022, Carson Foster, 4:06.56, closest to the Frenchman on the all-time clock.
The last two full-entry World Championships:
2022: 4:04.28 ER Marchand; 4:06.56 Foster; 4:07.47 Kalisz
2023: 4:02.50 WR Marchand; 4:06.56 Foster; 4:09.41 Daiya Seto (JPN)
Third in 2023, Seto, three times a World champion and still in the game, was third today at the Sydney Open, too, on 4:17.36 adrift Australian William Petric’s 4:12.21 and Clareburt’s roof-raiser.
In the last of Seto’s three World long-course 400m medley titles in 2019, the title his in
4:08.95, Clareburt was third in 4:12.07, then a national record.
Seto claimed gold in 2013 and 2015, bronze in 2017, 2023 and at the intercalated Worlds in Doha back isn February this year, when Clareburt took gold ahead of Britain’s Max Litchfield, the podium times 4:09.72, 4:10.40 and 4:12.51. That was the slowest 400IM podium at a World Championships since 2005.
More from the Sydney Open later…
Friday Vortex, May 10
Medley Missions Produce Highlights At Sydney Open
Daiya Seto and Lewis Clareburt delivered the race of the day at the Sydney Open, the medley men on 1:55.46 for the Japanese ace and 1:55.64 for the New Zealand challenger in the 200m butterfly a day after they went head-to-head in the 200m medley on 1:56 for Seto and 1:57 for Clareburt (see lower down in the Vortex).
Third in the ‘fly final was Bowen Gough (Griffith University Swim Club, QLD) on 1:58.39.
The women’s highlight of the day was a 1:06.87 in the 100m breaststroke from Ella Ramsay (Chandler, QLD).
The daughter of former Dolphin and Sydney 2000 teamster Heath Ramsay, Ella delivered her career best on breaststroke a day after a 4:11.69 win the 400m free, all part of her preparation for a shot at making the Australian Olympic team on medley at trials next month in Brisbane. At 1:06.7, she might even have her eye on a medley relay berth.
Success would see history repeat once more for the Ramsay family: Ella made the 2022 Commonwealth team 20 years after her dad, who coached his daughter in her youth, raced for Australia at the 2002 Games in Manchester when Ian Thorpe stopped almost all the gold, one of them in the 400m freestyle in what remains the swiftest time ever in a textile suit, 3:40.08.
Ramsay took second place behind triple Olympic gold medallist Kaylee McKeown in the 200m medley and 400m medley at the Australian Open Championships last month when the backstroke ace took down Stephanie Rice‘s 2008-2009 Australian and Oceania records. Ramsay was next home in both races with efforts of 2:10.71 and 4:36.94, both career bests.
Other winners:
Women:
200m freestyle: Brittany Castelluzzo (Tree Tea Gully, SA) 1:58.89
1500m freestyle: Tayla Martin (Carlile, NSW) 16:50.80
100m backstroke: Emily Seebohm (St Margaret’s QLD) 1:00.73
50m butterfly: Rikako Ikee (JPN) 25.58
400m medley: Arabella Bahr (Norwood, SA) 4:59.60
Men:
50m freestyle Time Trial: Cameron McEvoy (Somerville House, QLD) 21.94 (Josh Conias, 22.37)
100m freestyle: Will Yang (SOPAC, NSW) 48.47 (Flynn Southam (Bond, QLD) 48.97)
800m freestyle: Harvey Larke (Monash University, VIC) 8:24.22
Thursday Vortex, May 9
Wellbrock Leads Pardoe, Klemet & Robinson In Spanish Open 10k On Way To Paris Defence
Florian Wellbrock, Germany’s Olympic marathon champion, clocked 1 hour 50:13.5secs to win the Spanish Open 10km as he prepares for the defence of the ultimate crown in the River Seine in Paris this August.
Britain’s Hector Pardoe was six seconds away for silver in 1:50.19.9, with Wellbrock’s teammate Oliver Klemet on 1:50:22.8 for third and Pardoe’s teammate Toby Robinson fourth in 1:50.26.1.
Speaking through the DSV, head coach to the German team, Bernd Berkhahn said Wellbrock “did a good job”, adding: “All in all, it was a good test in conditions that we won’t have again in the World Cup series before Paris. The cold drew a lot of energy, but everyone felt it in the end.”
In the women’s marathon, Germany based Australian Moesha Johnson took the win in 1:56:07.6 ahead of Spain’s Angela Martinez Guillen, 1:58:33.8, and Paula Otero Fernandez, 1:58.39:4, 2016 Olympic champion and 2020ne silver medallist Sharon van Rouwendaal, of The Netherlands, home in fifth ion 1:58:47.9.
McEvoy 21.9 Tests Pace & Sets Pace For Next Wave, Conias, 16, On 22.3, At Sydney Open
Cameron McEvoy stopped the clock at 21.91 in the 50m freestyle at the Sydney Open, his last speed test before Australian Olympic Trials in Brisbane next month.
Coached by Tim Lane at Brisbane’s Somerville House School, McEvoy turns 30 next Monday and is among favourites for the Paris 2024 Olympic dash crown in August.
Nearest to him in Sydney were Somerville House training partner Joshua Conias, a 16-year-old lining up as the next big wave of Aussie sprinters on 22.35, and William Yang, SOPAC, on 22.45 (see further down in the Vortex for more on Yang’s challenge en route to trials for Paris 2024).
All three will take on a second 50m free challenge at the meet on Friday in an effort to give them the Olympic-schedule flow of heats, semis and final over two days even though day 1 dashes were billboarded as heats and final on the same day.
Conias will thus get a second shot at the 22.22sec world best for 16 and unders held by Romanian super-sprinter and former 100m freestyle world record holder David Popovici at 46.86 until a 46.80 relay lead-off by Pan Zhanle at World titles in Doha in February.
The best of the rest of the action saw Japan’s Daiya Seto take the 200IM in 1:56.99 an arm swing ahead of New Zealand’s Lewis Clareburt, on 1:57.55, William Petric (Nunawading) third in a career best of 1:58.05.
The highlight of the day in the women’s events came from Elizabeth Dekkers (University of Queensland), her 2:06.47 victory in the 200m butterfly the latest in a series of swims that suggest she’ll take a serious shot at the podium come Paris 2024, all being well at trials next month. Closest to her was Bella Grant (Australian Catholic University), on 2:08.92, third place to Brittany Castelluzzo (Tea Tree Gully) in 2:11.29.
Other winners in Olympic events:
Men
400m freestyle: Flynn Southam (Bond) 3:52.21
200m backstroke: Kane Follows (NZL) 1:58.56
100m breaststroke: Zac Stubblety-Cook (Griffith University) 1:00.21
100m butterfly: Matt Temple (Marion) 51.27
Women
50m freestyle: Olivia Wunsch (Carlile) 24.78
400m freestyle: Ella Ramsay (Chandler) 4:11.49
200m breaststroke: Hayley MacKinder (Griffith University SC) 2:29.17
200m medley: Sophie Martin (Somerville House, QLD) 2:16.88
La Divina Pellegrini Seeks Babysitter For Matilde During Paris Games If Dad Matteo Gets Call (No Trunchbulls Please)
At 35, Federica Pellegrini, Italy’s Queen of the 200m freestyle and known to the Italian media as “La Divina”, is looking forward to being a spectator at the Olympic Games for the first time in her life, now she’s a mum and retired from the other sort of fast lane in life. She says:
“I think it can be the Olympics that I will enjoy most, because I will have the opportunity to see many other sports. It will be a very beautiful, exciting edition of the games, because in Tokyo there was no audience and the one in an Olympiad is something powerful”.
Federica Pellegrini – Photo by Patrick B. Kraemer
There’s just one thing to sort out: who’s doing the babysitting for Matilde, who was born was born at 6:51am on January 3 this year: mum, the “Lioness of Verona” as the 2008 Olympic and multiple World champion was dubbed in her youth on the way to Olympic silver at the 2004 Games in Athens, or dad, husband and the last swim coach of her career, Matteo Giunta?
In an interview that can be read far and wide in the Italian media today, including this at the Quotidiano Nazionale, Pellegrini rules herself out: she’ll be in Paris as a member of the Olympic Athletes’ Commission.
The only question remaining is whether Giunta will get the call to be a coach at the Games. If yes, then the search will turn to family and professional help when it comes Matilde duty. The likes of Roald Dahl‘s Miss Trunchbull, Olympic shot putter, hammer, and javelin thrower of the 1972 Games turned despotic headmistress of Crunchem Hall, needn’t apply. All Miss Honey types welcome.
Will Pellegrini watch the 200m free, the event in which she graced a record eight long-course World-Championship podiums 2005-2019, her four golds claimed in 2009, 2011, 2017 and 2019? “Of course,” says La Divina. “… but I’m also on the list to hand out the medals … so, no regrets about my race; I’ll have done everything I could have done [including handing out the medals…].”
Looking back, did she have any advice for 2006-born Sara Curtis (24.56 50m free), who will make her Olympic debut for Italy in Paris? “It’s the start of her journey; I would tell her to go very calmly, not in the water, but in the management of everything else – and to do only what amuses her.”
Pellegrini believes that the current generation, in some regards, is more confident than her’s because “they grew up with social media and they’re used to being in the spotlight”.
For Curtis, there’s a test in the tale. Raised by an Italian father and Nigerian mother in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy, she will be the first black swimmer to race for the Italian swim team at the Olympics.
Curtis On Racism? “Not My Problem, It’s Theirs…”
Since making a name for herself in the pool, Curtis has been asked a lot of questions about racist abuse of athletes. She recently described as “laughable” the views of Roberto Vannacci, an Italian Army general, in his book ‘The World Upside Down’, that volleyball star Paola Egonu, whose parents are Nigerian, has ‘features’ that ‘do not represent Italian-ness’. His book coincides with measures in the European Union to push back on the rise of the far right in Europe, some dissenting parties already in power.
Curtis, a four-time gold medal winner at the European junior championships, told AFP this past week, that she has no personal experience of racism in French swimming:
“I consider myself lucky, as I’ve never had anything like that (racist abuse) happen to me. But, if I were to ever meet someone who saw what I am as a problem, I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. It wouldn’t make a big difference to me, because it’s not my problem, it’s theirs. If you look at my sport, there is this element regarding black athletes. There just aren’t that many of them. But, honestly, it’s not something I’m too bothered by. They can say what they want, that I’m a black girl, that it’s strange. But it’s strange for you, not for me.”
Sara Curtis, in an interview with AFP. Image courtesy of Federnuoto, the Italian Swimming Federation
Meanwhile, Pellegrini runs a swimming academy in Livigno these days and says resilience of various kinds starts early: “I try to transmit the passion I have for this sport; 99% of the time I manage and this gives me enormous satisfaction. I’m super severe, swimming is a difficult sport, and the sooner you understand that, the better.”
William Yang Approaches Trials For Paris With Perspective Of A Lucky Man
William Yang will take to his blocks at Australian Olympic trials next month with the perspective of a man in great shape just at the right time, against the odds.
Having won his first senior national title in 100m freestyle in 2022, Yang had a fine northern summer season: alongside Kyle Chalmers and mates, he won gold and silver medals in relays at World titles in Budapest and then two golds at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Then in 2023, his goals turning towards Paris he felt a sharp pain in his back. The test results delivered the startling news: “There was a tumour in my spinal canal and then that grows on the nerve,” he tells Julian Linden at The Australian. “In the end, I couldn’t really walk so I knew I had to get surgery done and I’m very glad that I got it done.”
The 25-year-old Sydney University student is now approaching everything with “a fresh sense of purpose and calmness”.
He says: “I got really lucky. After the scan, immediately I was calling every surgeon in NSW and then I quickly found one, at Westmead Private Hospital. His name is doctor Jun Kim and he’s a fabulous surgeon. He was like ‘your case seems very urgent so, let’s move you to next week.’ “The time between me finding this out to getting the surgery was less than 10 days so there wasn’t much time to process it in my head. But then everything went really well. It was a long recovery but things went very well.”
In March, I watched Yang pip Chalmers in the 100m free in 48.6 at NSW Championships. A month later, Chalmers took the national crown in his first sub-48 of the season, Yang second in a career best of 48.20.
Read the full story at The Australian
Wednesday Vortex, April 8
Florent Manaudou Brings Olympic Flame Ashore To Macron In Marseille
Florent Manaudou, Olympic 50m freestyle champion at London 2012, brought the Olympic Flame to shore near the Old Port of Marseille in the past hour in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron 79 days before the Opening Ceremony at the Paris Games.
More than 150,000 people attended the official welcoming of the flame, ringed by tight security that included 6,000 law-enforcement officers, after a six-hour parade of the three-masted Belem ship that left Greece on April 27 after the flame was lit in Ancient Olympia 11 days earlier.
Police canine units and elite forces snipers were deployed on the way to a Games that will unfold against a troubled global backdrop. That includes Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza sparked by a terrorist attack on Israeli citizens that led to a response from Israeli authorities that is the subject of challenge at the International Criminal Court, including a possible test of the “weaponisation and criminalisation of starvation”, a topic that tows heavy irony and sorrow given the horrid history of the Holocaust.
“It’s an unprecedented level of security,” French Interior minister Gerald Darmanin told media in Marseille. “Life goes on in Marseille but in great security conditions.”
Marseille “was the obvious choice,” said Tony Estanguet, the president of the Paris 2024 organising committee, with a nod to a Mediterranean city founded around 600BC by Greek settlers from Phocaea.
Manaudou, whose victory in 2012 made him and sister Laure, the 2004 Olympic 400m freestyle champion, the first siblings in games history to claim gold in solo swimming events, is the first of many high-achievers and community members who will have the honour of participating in the torch relay to Paris in the coming 10 weeks.
Laure and Florent are among the star athletes who will run with the torch in the last stretch of the relay in Paris after more than 10,000 people carry the flame before it reaches Paris and is installed near the Louvre, in the Jardin des Tuileries.
A free rap concert is now underway on a floating stage in front of 45,000 spectators at the port and “hundreds of millions around the world,” retiree and boat owner Henri Gerente, told Reuters. “I am very proud and I hope that everyone will participate in this momentum. It can only be a good thing for the economy and for everything else, for the image of the city. So I’m proud of it.”
From Manaudou and Macron, the torch relay will get underway in the morning with former Olympique de Marseille soccer players Jean-Pierre Papin, Didier Drogba and Basile Boli, as well as three-star chef Alexandre Mazzia among the torch bearers.
The Olympic Opening Ceremony will take place on the River Seine on July 26, not in the traditional confines of a stadium, its open nature making the security brief all the trickier.
McIntosh Bypasses 800 At Canadian Trials, Boosting Ledecky Hopes Of Historic Olympic Four-Peat
Canadian multi-talented World champion Summer McIntosh has opted out of the 800 metres freestyle at Olympic trials, potentially boosting American Katie Ledecky‘s chances of an unprecedented fourth gold medal in the event at the Paris Games.
McIntosh’s withdrawal from the 800 at trials next week in Toronto does not mean she is definitely out of the Olympic race in an event Ledecky has lost just once – to the Canadian in February this year, since claiming the first of her gold medals at 15 years of age in London back in 2012.
Summer McIntosh Inflicts First Career 800 Free Defeat On Katie Ledecky With 8:11 Commonwealth Record
Trials rules are that the top two home inside the Olympic qualifying target in any event take the two-per-nation berths for the Games but if the slots are not filled, as is likely at the Canadian selection event, then McIntosh can still be added to the 800m in Paris at the discretion of selectors.
Is it likely? Probably not. The 800m freestyle in Paris, heats and finals, falls in precisely the same session as the heats and finals of the 200m medley, in which McIntosh, holder of the world junior record at 2:06 has a strong shot at gold.
McIntosh, a four-times world champion in the 200m butterfly (2) and 400m medley (2), the latter an event in which the 17-year-old also holds the World record, is a gold-medal/podium shot in several events, including the 200m and 400m freestyle, the 200m butterfly and both medleys.
She will also race in the Canadian 4×100 and 4x200m freestyle relays and, depending on her stroke form on freestyle and backstroke relative to others, the medley relays might also be on the schedule of an athlete whose rare multiple skills place her on a pathway to one of the busiest olympic campaigns across all sports in Paris.
Ledecky, meanwhile, will bid for a fourth consecutive 800m gold medal in Paris, provided all goes well at USA Trials in mid-June. If successful, she would become only the second swimmer ever to claim the same title at four Games, the first having been Michael Phelps when he retained the 200m medley title at Rio 2016, after wins in 2004, 2008 and 2012.
Should McIntosh bypass the Paris 800 and Ledecky lines up, the American is likely to face her stiffest opposition from Australians Ariarne Titmus and Lani Pallister, the first podium of more than one swimmer inside 8:10 in prospect.
Keanna MacInnes – Trading Watercolours For Team GB Colours In Olympic Waters
When Keanna MacInnes makes her Olympic debut for Britain in Paris this summer, it’ll be a case of trading watercolours for national colours in Olympic waters.
The 22-year-old is one of seven Stirling University swimmers selected for Team GB swim squad, alongside head coach at Stirling Steve Tigg. MacInnes booked her Olympic ticket with victory in the 200m butterfly at British trials last month and may also see relay action in Paris.
Speaking to the Stirling Observer’s Stuart McFarlane, she said: “I want to be swimming my best times when I get to Paris and based on how I swam at the trials, I think that can allow me to place pretty well. I’m hoping to get as close to a medal as I can, that would be amazing [and] getting into a few finals.”
After Paris, a fresh canvas awaits. Having completed a BSc in Psychology at Stirling University, MacInnes wanted to nurture her artistic talents and is now in her second year of a BA Art and Design course at Forth Valley College.
She told McFarlane: “The course allows me to be creative and have fun and helps me to relax and take my mind off swimming and competition. I quite like the distortion that water makes when someone is swimming and I also like the way the light comes off the water on top and below the surface, that inspires me in my artwork. Forth Valley College have been so flexible with me around my training schedule which has been going really well recently.
Monday Vortex, May 6
Net Gaines Of Telling The Truth: Riley On Fair Play & Safe Sport
Riley Gaines, the former U.S. college swimmer turned campaigner to save women’s sport for female athletes, has told graduates at Adrian College near Detroit that she raised her voice and two big red flags because a gaping void of silence needed to be filled with truth on the impact of males in female races and safe spaces.
Gaines, who tied with Lia Thomas (who grew into adulthood as Will Thomas) for fifth place in the 200 yards freestyle at NCAA finals in 2022 a day after Thomas became the first transgender swimmer to win an NCAA title (500 yards, ahead of three Team USA Olympic silver medallists), told graduates and their families at Adrian College that she had never imagined she would face “such resistance, censorship, vitriol and violence, in many instances, in desperation to silence me” because she had simply told the truth about the nature of sex-based sport, safety and fair play.
The debate over Thomas was fuelled by highly criticised decisions taken by NCAA to allow male advantage into female sport without hearing the voices of women noting the poison that was bound to be poured into the pool and spill well beyond it:
A University of Kentucky charge in her college rafting days, Gaines told her audience:
“The unfair competition, the exploitation in our private spaces, the silencing and the threats that we faced if we dared to oppose or even question this injustice compiled, and I felt like I could no longer be silent. I waited for so long for someone else to say something, someone else to defend us and our sex-based protections, but no one did, so I decided I would unapologetically stand for truth, both in a Biblical and objective sense.”
Riley Gaines – Integrity has been a negotiable entity in Olympic sport for decades
The Detroit News Online reports that Gaines was invited in March by Adrian College president Jeffery Docking to give the commencement address at the college southwest of Detroit .
Reporter Anne Snabes notes: “When introducing Gaines as the speaker, Docking said Gaines ‘made it her mission to advocate for upholding competitive fairness for women in sports …’ and was interrupted by applause and cheers from the audience. She served, he resumed, “as a role model for courageously speaking out against an issue that could forever change women’s sports in America’.”
“I didn’t want to be seen as disrespectful,” Gaines tells her audience. “I wanted to be liked. I thought twice before I spoke to an issue that was deemed controversial, like I imagine many of you do or have done, but I chose to be courageous.”
She also notes:
“When we stifle speech and censor viewpoints, we are doing everyone a disservice, both the person trying to convey a message or perspective and those being denied hearing said insight. We risk silencing voices that may help us progress, and we risk not being able to respond rationally to what may be false or dangerous ideas … I ask you who oppose my presence, what are you so afraid of? Having your perspectives challenged, being encouraged to engage in independent thought?”
Riley Gaines – image: Riley Gaines and biological maled Lia Thomas when they shared 5th place at NCAA finals in 2022 – YouTube screenshot
Watch a part of the the address by Riley Gaines in which she urges the graduates and their families to “inherit the mantle of freedom” with a commitment to truth
Sunday Vortex, May 5
Unfair Play Shortlisted For UK Sports Writing Award 2024
Unfair Play, by Sharron Davies with this author, has been shortlisted for the Sports Book Awards 2024 “Sports Writing Award”. The Shortlist on the way to the awards ceremony at The Oval in London next month:
Unfair Play was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of The Year in 2023 and won the public vote “Judge a Book by Its Cover” after the hardback launch of the book in June.
The paperback is out this July, with an insightful update chapter on the fight to save women’s sport and the campaign for justice on behalf of generations of women impacted by the GDR doping era.
Comment: It was great to work on the book with Sharron. We put in some serious hours, and that on the back of decades of never accepting injustice of the kind she and generations of women have endured. Lovely to be shortlisted and have the work recognised. The day Unfair Play can be shifted to the shelf marked “History” will be one worth celebrating. As things stand, the fight to save women’s sport for female athletes and uphold rules on safe and fair play, is alive and kicking. Indeed, not a day goes by without another absurd example of male advantage being allowed to colonise female sport.
Related:
Unfair Play Out Today – Why Males Don’t Belong in Female Sport
Existential Threats To Olympic Sport?
The Guardian and Observer have two fine lines on potentially existential threats to Olympic sports: climate change and corporate packages that raise a lot of questions and invite us to look at the deal of moaning within the Olympic Movement when Sebastian Coe and World Athletics recently announced $50k prizes for gold medallists at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the sums a pittance compared to what some are prepared to pay for access to “the right kind of athlete”:
The Observer:
‘We’re looking at losing 20% of Olympic nations’: how the climate crisis is changing sport
The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/may/04/super-rich-exclusive-paris-olympics-packagesSuper-rich spending up to $500,000 on exclusive Paris Olympics packages
Saturday Vortex, May 4
Ellen Walshe Confines Smith* 1996 Standard To Irish History In 4:37 Over 400IM At Leinster Championships
Ellen Walshe took down one of Michelle Smith‘s 400m medley standard from 1996, one of Ireland’s longest standing national swimming record, during at the Leinster Swimming Championships at the Sport Ireland National Aquatic Centre today.
Walshe, of Templeogue Swimming Club, clocked 4:37.94, inside the 4:39.18 in which Smith* claimed Olympic gold at Atlanta 1996 before she fell from grace and was banned from swimming for manipulation of an anti-doping test sample in 1998.
The story of Smith’s anti-doping challenge was broken by this author in The Times in 1998 and led to the first public hearing of a Court of Arbitration for Sport case. The next case to be heard in public was that of Sun Yang* in late 2019 after the same author and title broke the news of an incident in 2018 that would lead to the Chinese controversy being served a suspension of four years and three months, a penalty that was spent at the start of this month.
Back to the here and now and Walshe improved on a previous best of 4:41.30, clocked at the Mare Nostrum Swim Tour in Barcelona last year. Swim Ireland noted: “Already qualified for the Paris Games in the 200m Individual Medley, the 22-year-old’s time today was under the Olympic Qualification Time of 4:38.53, but she’ll need to have a similar performance at the Irish Open Championships and Olympic Trials (22nd – 26th May) in less than three weeks to be able to swim it in Paris.”
Friday Vortex , May 3
Katie Ledecky Receives Presidential Medal of Freedom & Says She’s Gunning For LA2028 Home Games
Katie Ledecky has towed her her 10 Olympic medals, 7 of them golden, and 26 World championship podiums back to home waters in Washington to receive the USA’s Presidential Medal of Freedom in honour of her stellar achievements in the pool.
At 27, she’s almost 12 years beyond her first gold medal at London 2012, has more golden and podium chances at Paris 2024, assuming all goes well at USA trials next month, and has let it be known that she’s set her sights on a fifth Olympics in 2028, Los Angeles a possible home-Games swansong.
On taking time out to fly north from her base at the Florida Gators to receive a different kind of medal in the 61st year of the ward being handed out, Katie told the Washington Post:
“Obviously, growing up in this area I know what a huge honour this is. feel very connected to this area. I know this is a national kind of award, but to me it feels almost local. I get to come home for this for a couple of days. This is my community.”
In an interview with NBC, she also said: “The [2028] Olympics being in LA is very appealing. Not very many athletes get an opportunity to compete in a home Games. I definitely at this point am planning on going through 2028… whether I compete in one event, multiple events, a relay, whatever.”
Paris 2024: The Ongoing Clean-Up Of The River Seine
French officials inaugurated on Thursday a huge water storage basin meant to help clean up the River Seine, set to be the venue for marathon swimming at the Paris Games and the swimming leg of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlons, AP reports.
Sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra praised Paris’ ability “to provide athletes from all over the world with an exceptional setting on the Seine for their events.”
Paris inaugurates giant water storage basin to clean up the River Seine for Olympic swimming
In full: Paris inaugurates giant water storage basin to clean up the River Seine for Olympic swimming
An earlier reports outlining the long-term clean-up and the cancellation of the Paris 2024 open-water marathon test event:
Wednesday Vortex, May 1
Qatar Makes Its Olympic Ambitions Official
Qatar has formally launched a bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games, as widely expected after long years of campaigning on the long and often troubling trail of Olympic politics.
Part of the warm-up for its bid produced a popularity record: Qatar hosted the FIFA World Cup football tournament for men, the most viewed sports event in history. Estimates of engagement with football’s 3.5 billion fans worldwide suggest that popularity converted to 1.5 billion viewers watching the World Cup final on television and streaming services, while more than 5 billion viewers tuned in across the tournament as a whole.
Heat, corruption, discrimination against the gay community and death of a great many migrants on building sites during the construction of stadia were all among controversies along the way and will doubtless be raised once more as Qatar’s bid to become the smallest nation (pop. estimated to be just under 3 million come 2036) 2.6 million) ever to host the Olympics should it win the right to do so. Helsinki and Finland hold the record: the national population was around 4 million when the capital hosted the 1952 Games.
April Vortex: The New China Crisis, & WADA’s Decision To Launch An Investigation As Paris Games Loom
Our coverage after the news of 23 Chinese positives broke on April 20
ARD’s “Doping Top Secret – The China Files” – Parts 1-4 – Watch Why WADA U-Turn Is Urgent
SOS Analysis
The ARD China Files: Part 1 – SOS Analysis: Spies, Spice & Mass Contamination
The ARD China Files: Part 2 – SOS Analysis: On The Trail Of An Existential Precedent?
The ARD China Files: Part 3 – SOS Analysis: Lab Trials For TMZ & Testing Timeframes
SOS Related Coverage
WADA Tested On State Of Independence In Go-Free-23 Chinese Doping Positives Inquiry
Chinada Says It Has Worked With “Zero-Tolerance” Attitude Towards Doping
Sport Integrity Australia Backs USADA Call For WADA Review Of China’s Go-Free 23 Positives
Chinada Says It Has Worked With “Zero-Tolerance” Attitude Towards Doping
Zhang Yufei Books Ticket To Defence Of 200 ‘Fly Crown Under A Cloud Of Controversy (see below in this Vortex- Chinese Championships coverage)
USADA Calls For Independent Prosecutor & Overhaul of WADA In New China Crisis
WADA In Staunch Defence Of Decision Not To Challenge 28 Positives In 23 Chinese Swimmers
Sunday Essay: Caution: Olympic Hotel Contamination May Contain Trimetazidine? We’d Be Nuts To Think So
New China Crisis As ARD Reveals That 23 Swimmers, Zhang, Wang & Qin On The List, Tested Positive For Sun’s 1st-Offence Drug