The Excitement Is Palpable! Rio 2016!

Dear Swimmers

I hope you are just loving the Rio 2016 Olympic Games coverage thus far - Australia are doing brilliantly well!

Here are my top-picks so far - check out replays at https://seven.com.au/olympics/ and download the "Olympics on 7" app where you can search for your favourite events by event type. It's really great - just watch your mobile bandwidth limits as if you're like me you'll be hooking through that quicker than Cameron McEvoy in the 4 x 100m men's freestyle relay! The official "Rio 2016" app is also great for notifications of when all your favourite events are on across all sports.

Mack Horton (Australia) in the 400m men's freestyle final:

Sun Yang was the 2012 Olympic Champion but in 2014 tested positive for a drug used for the treatment of angina. He served a 3-month suspension. Horton claimed the gold as a win for "drug free sport" which has since gone on to spark great controversy. Even our own "Swim Smooth Perth" Facebook page is awash with very bitter resentment from angry fans of Sun Yang who claim Horton should respect him more than make these "false" claims:

I love the typo misprint here especially of the word "treatment", worded "cheatment" - go figure!

Controversy aside, we can take two things away from Horton's win:

1. amazing pace awareness. James Guy (GB) goes out well under world record pace, only to die and finish 6th. Horton conversely goes out and appears to accelerate. Actually the last 50m is very fast but what we're really seeing is the massive deceleration of Guy's final 100m (he is still leading at 300m). Guy is the current world champion as well over 200m freestyle. The commentators claims he needs to go out fast and try to hold on, but even as world champion, if you cook yourself, the result is going to be the same as you and I cooking ourselves too much at the start of a Friday CSS set! Disaster.
2. breathing side. Horton is at a distinct advantage over Yang in the final 50m as they are both breathing to their right but Yang is on Horton's right. Horton can see Yang, Yang can't see Horton. How important is this? See for yourself next time you're trying to race someone in the squad! This reminds me of Ian Thorpe's amazing Olympic Gold medal at the Athens 2004 Olympics in the 200m freestyle against Pieter van den Hoogenband (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WASQ36nkz6E) - Thorpe breathes to his right up the pool and left coming back - always keeping an eye on Hoogie - now can you see why I'm so pedantic about mixing up your breathing sides to cover all bases!

The Australian women's 4 x 100m freestyle relay final:

A sensational swim by the women's team - more to come from the Campbell sister's this week!

Adam Peaty (Great Britain) in the 100m men's breaststroke final:

Totally untouchable in this event, and oh-so-humble with it!

Sarah Sjostrom (Sweden) in the 100m women's butterfly final:

Unbelievably good form in the butterfly from Sarah Sjostrom…check out my feet in the bottom left: the perks of the job! This is my research and quantitive analysis for the afternoon!

And if you want some of this inspiration to translate into a session this week, here's what the Monday morning squad did today - enjoy!

See you on pool deck this week!

Paul