Team USA's "unbelievably encouraging" swim worlds

SHANGHAI -- As the race unfolded, it wasn't a question of whether Ryan Lochte would win the 400-meter individual medley. It was by how much. In 2011, he's just that much better than everyone else. After three of the four segments in the race, he was a stunning three seconds ahead of the other American in the race, Tyler Clary, who was in second place.

Lochte went on to win, in 4:07.13, with Clary  four seconds back, capping the final night of the 2011 swimming world championships, a night that not only saw a second world record -- China's Sun Yang, in the men's 1500 meters -- but also saw the American team again assert its dominance.

Remember former USA Track & Field chief executive Doug Logan, and his ambitious goal of seeing the American track team win 30 medals in London next year?

Here, the U.S. swim team won 29. That's seven better than it won at the 2009 world championships in Rome.

In Beijing, at the 2008 Games, the U.S. swim team won 31 medals, 12 gold. The track team may still get the love from the traditionalists but the plain, hard fact is that it's the swim team that carries the U.S. medals count. It did in Beijing and it's all but sure to do so in London, too.

In a twist, the American dominance in Shanghai can be attributed in large measure to the American women, who came on strong across the board, and in particular to the emergence of 16-year-old Missy Franklin.

In Rome, the American women took home only eight medals -- two gold, three silver, three bronze.

Here: 13 total -- eight gold, two silver, three bronze.

With Franklin yelling, "Let's go, USA!" in the stands, Jessica Hardy won gold Sunday night in the 50 breaststroke, a poignant victory after her suspension for inadvertently ingesting a contaminated supplement, with Rebecca Soni -- who earlier had won the 100 and 200 breaststroke races -- taking third. Then Elisabeth Beisel won the women's 400 IM.

"It was great by [Saturday] night and just got greater tonight," the U.S. women's head coach, Jack Bauerle, said when it was all over.

The sudden depth of the U.S. women's program was most evident in the medley relay Saturday, when Franklin anchored a victory in American-record time. That prompted Natalie Coughlin to post afterward to her Twitter feed, "Yay. Gold medal, 4x100 MR. 10 yrs on that relay & 1st GOLD."

The depth on display in Shanghai, moreover, doesn't even factor in a whole host of college swimmers or the likes of Dara Torres or Janet Evans.

Pointing toward London, it's "unbelievably encouraging," Bauerle said.

As for the men -- well, the performances that Lochte and Phelps threw down are surely encouraging.

Lochte won five gold medals and set a world record -- the first since the plastic suits went away at the start of 2010 -- in the 200 IM, edging out Phelps in the race by 16-hundredths of a second.

Asked to reflect on his performance, Lochte said, and he was being dead serious, "I'm not happy. I know I can go a lot faster."

This is the mental key to Lochte's success. "I don't really think I'm the top dog," he explained, adding that no matter what he might accomplish, immediately afterward, "I knock myself right down to the bottom of the totem pole." So, looking toward London, "I have a whole year to work hard, train hard, to get back up there to the top. As far as I'm concerned right now, I'm at the bottom."

Phelps on Sunday night put the American men in position to win the medley relay with his butterfly split; Nathan Adrian swam the winning anchor leg.

Over the course of his week here, Phelps won both the 100 and 200 flys; he also took part in two winning relays; so that's four golds. He took two silvers, both behind Lochte, in the 200 IM and the 200 free; and he was part of the bronze-winning 400 free relay.

In all, that's seven medals -- the most won by anyone here. Over his extraordinary career, Phelps has won 26 gold and 33 world championship medals; both are records.

The medley marked Phelps' last world championship swim. He has vowed that the London Games will see the end of his competitive swimming career. He said in a Twitter post that it was "wild" to think that Shanghai was his last worlds -- his first was in 2001, in Japan -- and "amazing" to finish with a gold medal.

At a news conference, Phelps again made the point that 2011 is a warm-up for 2012. Once more, he said it's time to buckle down:

"I said this 100 times this week and I'll say it 100 more. To swim fast you've got to be in good shape. Ryan is clearly working hard and is clearly in the best shape he has probably ever been [in]. That's why he's swimming how he is. You know, I just need to get back to what I did to get to where I am, and that's hard work and not giving up, and that really is the biggest key for me over the next 12 months."

The challenge for the American men is obviously not Lochte and Phelps.

It's this:

Clary won that silver in the 400 IM and a bronze in the 200 backstroke, both behind Lochte.

Tyler McGill took third in the 100 fly, behind Phelps.

Nobody else won anything.

To be fair, stuff happens. Adrian, for instance, who finished fourth in the 50 free, touched the wall one-hundredth of a second from third place. Nobody's blaming him for that -- that would be ridiculous.

Traditionally, though, the U.S. men are strong in the breaststroke and in a race such as the 100 back. "We know where we've got to get better," the U.S. men's coach, Eddie Reese, said Sunday night.

As for the inevitable -- before the "how many golds can Lochte win in London?" chatter gets overwhelming, remember that the eight Phelps won in Beijing broke down to five individual events and three relays.

One step further: The American men would seem a safe bet for 2012 in two of those relay, the 800 free and medley.

As for the 400 free, though, the one in which Jason Lezak saved the house in 2008 -- the Australians, led by James Magnussen, smoked the Americans in Shanghai. Magnussen went on to win the open 100 here as well. He is a force, and he's just 20 years old.

Magnussen swam the lead-off leg for the Aussies; Eamon Sullivan the anchor. After watching the destruction, Reese had said, "After we saw the first guy from Australia, we didn't know he could stay out there, that they'd stay out there. Their anchor man's got such a great history. He's the guy that scared me on the relay, more so than their lead-off man. But he now scares me more."

On Sunday night, Reese observed, "The world is getting better."

Before the Americans even get to Magnussen and the Aussies, they have to get by the French; after all, the U.S. finished third in that 400 relay, not second.

There's a year for the Americans themselves to get better. And maybe to find new talent. America's college ranks are filled with up-and-coming swimmers, too, Reese said; the U.S. nationals take place in just a few days.

It makes swim freaks geeked up already for the U.S. Trials next summer in Omaha. "I think," Reese said, "it's going to be the best meet any of us have ever seen."

No 2011 magic for U.S. men's 400 freestyle relay team

SHANGHAI-- Three years ago, in Beijing, the American men won a relay race that still gives you shivers when you watch it. Who can forget Jason Lezak's out-of-body swim that clinched the gold medal? Two years ago, at the world championships in Rome, the American men again willed their way to victory in the 400-meter freestyle relay.

The magic came to a sudden and dramatic stop Saturday night in Shanghai. The Americans didn't win the 400 free relay at the 2011 world championships. The Aussies did. The Americans didn't even come in second. The French did. The Americans came home third, and about the only consolation was that this wasn't the Olympics.

"We just talked about just not liking where we were all standing," Michael Phelps said after the American men had come off the medal stand with their bronze medals.

"Clearly everybody wants to win. And being able to pull out a medal is good. But we -- I think, as Americans want to win everything that we do. We want to be the best. That's all you can really say. We strive to be the best we can be. We all know we can be better than that."

This was a loss for the books. The Americans had won this race in 2005, 2007 and 2009 and of course at the 2008 Games.

This was, moreover, a race that underscored two particular facets of swimming that make it thoroughly compelling.

One relates to the sport as it is now around the world: A whole bunch of countries are really good. That means the U.S. team is clearly going to be challenged heading toward London and the 2012 Games. That challenge may yet prove constructive. Only time will tell.

Two is more particular to U.S. swimming. The culture of American swimming is not only to stress accountability but to accept and acknowledge defeat -- to be stand-up about it. American athletes in any number of other sports could learn a lot from the way U.S. swimmers handle losing.

"I was out too slow," Garrett Weber-Gale, who swam the second leg of Saturday's relay, said, adding a moment later, "Obviously a relay is four men but it's pretty embarrassing for me to go slow like that and I feel like, you know, I don't know the right word, but it's very disappointing for me to have such a slow leg and feel like it was my fault we did poorly.

"... Truly, I feel sick about it. I don't like it. Just have to work harder to be better next time."

Lezak, who swam third, said he didn't swim his best, either: "It takes 100 percent of a team to do their best splits to win nowadays. You can't go in there and have two guys swim great and two guys swim average and expect to win. That's what happened today. Unfortunately, I was one of the average guys out there."

The U.S. men's coach, Eddie Reese, said, "We usually swim our relays as well or better than we look like we should. This wasn't a very good relay for us."

Before the race, the focus had been on the French, Americans and Russians. The Americans had all those recent years of winning history; the Russians, after winning the relay at the 2003 worlds and then all but disappearing, had finished first at last year's European championships; the French, second.

The Australians were nobody's betting favorites. That said, Eamon Sullivan, the Aussies' anchor guy, was hardly a secret. He had gone a then-world record 47.05 in Beijing, at the Games.

The Aussies' lead-off guy Saturday turned out to be one James Magnussen. He is 19.

Magnussen promptly went 47.49 to put Australia in open water. The Aussies never relinquished the lead.

For comparison, in the 2008 Games, Phelps swam his opening leg in 47.51.

Asked late Saturday about swimming here against Phelps, Magnussen said, "No biggie."

Phelps had put the Americans in a solid second place at the end of his split, in 48.08.

They dropped to third in Weber-Gale's leg, fourth with Lezak; Nathan Adrian pulled the Americans back up to third with a 47.40 anchor.

Reese said, "We had splits that were not at all like we thought they would be. Michael's split was really good. He was out there where we thought he should be. Then we just -- our middle, Garrett and Jason -- when you get behind out in the middle of the pool, and you got real big guys making real big waves," meaning big guys from other teams, "it's not a safe place to be.

"It's why we usually we lead off with Michael. 'Cause Michael is super-solid. And he's one of the top two or three out there. I think he had the second-fastest 100 lead-off. We got what we wanted out of that."

The Aussies' winning time: 3:11 flat. The French -- 3:11.14. The U.S. -- 3:11.96.

As Phelps pointed out afterward, the 2011 American relay time was almost two and a half seconds slower than the winning U.S. 2009 relay time, 3:09.21.

There's a whole week of these world championships left -- a lot of racing. Big picture, now there will be a year to think about this loss.

"I mean, it's frustrating," Phelps said.

"... We know what we have to do to get back. We all said that. Standing up on the podium, it's clearly not the spot we want to be in. This is really going to be motivation.

"... It is a good thing it's not the Olympics. We have time to prepare and get ready and change some things. I think that's what we're all going to do. Because I don't think we like the feeling that we have right now."

Michael Phelps: 'Everything is clicking'

Michael Phelps just put in a three-week block of altitude training up in Colorado Springs, Colo. Coming down from altitude, he raced last weekend in Indianapolis. He decided beforehand that he would write down in a journal the times he wanted to hit at the races in Indy.

For those who have followed Phelps' incredible career, the 16 Olympic medals, 14 of them gold, you know that he can have an almost super-natural quality to predict his times. It's like he is a metronome.

More, it's a signal that he's motivated and on his game -- he's tuned in, he's dangerous and he's getting ready to really rock.

In an interview this week, this is what Phelps said he had written before the Indianapolis races in his journal:

"I wanted to go 1:46 in the 200 free."  He went 1:46.27.

"I said 1:57 in the 200 IM but I was a little faster," 1:56.88.

"I said 1:55, 1:54 in the 200 fly." He touched in 1:55.34.

"48 in the 100 free." He came home in 48.89.

"And I wanted to hit 50-point in the 100 fly but I was a little off" -- 51.75.

Each of those five times is fastest in the world this year.

One race in particular, the 100 free, is worth dissecting in further detail.

Phelps has always been what's called a "back half" swimmer. That is, he goes out slower in the first 50 meters of a 100-meter race and comes on strong in the second 50.

So it was no surprise Phelps was behind at the turn, this time behind Jason Lezak, the very same Jason Lezak who saved the 400-meter freestyle relay gold for Phelps and the U.S. team in 2008 in Beijing.

Off the turn, though, Phelps turned it on. He swam the back half in 25.10. Nobody else in the field got under 26 seconds for the final 50 meters. Indeed, no one else in the field broke 50 seconds for the race. Again, Phelps finished in 48.89.

That kind of back half tells you that Phelps is once again feeling far more comfortable with his freestyle technique. He had since Beijing famously dithered with it, trying this, trying that, admitting to frustrations -- but now all again seems, well, Phelps-like.

Which means it's excellent but there's still plenty of tinkering to be done to go faster still -- just the way he and longtime coach Bob Bowman like it with four months to go until the 2011 world swimming championships in Shanghai and the countdown to the 2012 London Olympics nearing 500 days.

"Being able to go to Colorado and really work on some specifics really helped a lot," Phelps said of his freestyle technique.

"I am getting a feel for the water again. I am able to ride off my kick. Everything feels connected. I think it showed in the 200 and in the 100. But, I mean, there's still a lot of work to be done. Those times, at the end of the year, aren't going to stand up."

Phelps also said, "As a whole, I think for right now -- I'm on the right track." adding of the weekend in Indy, "I think after the weekend there I have started realizing I was enjoying myself, I was having fun, I was laughing, I was swimming how I wanted to.

"It's kind of --  I'm enjoying it more than I was before. I'm happy again and everything is clicking. It feels kind of good to be back and it feels good to be moving in the right direction."