The Pan Pacific Swim Championships have begun and tomorrow morning, which was at 5:00 tonight, saw three Canyons (one current and two grads) swimmers in action. Top of our list was Abbey Weitzeil who swam in the 100 free. Just a little off her best Abbey, finished 7th in prelims behind 3 Australian and Americans Missy Franklin and Simone Manuel. Shannon Vreeland finished eighth. Right now, you’re probably thinking about how amazing that final will be. The four top Americans against the four top Australians – a prelude to the 4 x 100 relay. Well, the world will never know, because the odd rules at this event state that each nation can only have 2 swimmers in finals. Abbey was the 3rd American, so she will have to swim in consolation finals while slower swimmers from Canada, Japan and even the girl who got 16th will get to swim finals. Rules like this make you suddenly feel like you are at an 8 year old’s AYSO soccer game where everyone gets to score. Several international events have limits like this to keep powerhouse programs like the United States or Australia from dominating the sport. Hey world, don’t hate us because we’re amazing. Abbey wasn’t the only Canyons swimmer affected by the rule. Canyons grad and world ranked sprinter Anthony Ervin also got 7th in his 100 free, but he was the 4th American and will have to swim in consolation finals while The guy in 15th who swam nearly a second slower will be in finals. Another Canyons graduate in action was Frankie Jonker. Frankie who is a freshman at Texas A&M, is competing for her home country South Africa. In the breaststroke, Frankie was listed as the first alternate, but since Japan had five swimmers in the two heats, one of them was bumped out by the rules and Frankie will got in. So, in this case, the stupid rule works in our favor. Finals are at 2:00 AM but don’t bother trying to get up and watch. The web feed only seems to be for prelims and that was spotty at best. If we find a better web feed, we will post it. So sleep and when you wake up, let’s hope there is something exciting to report.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 04:15:25 +0000