If you have been following the coverage of 2016 French Elite National Championships in Montpellier you know that there was a controversy during last night’s final in the men’s 200 freestyle. If not, you can catch up with our articles:
- http://swimswam.com/controversial-finish-keeps-defending-olympic-champ-agnel-200-fr/
- http://swimswam.com/agnel-interview-its-rather-unacceptable/
- http://swimswam.com/agnel-complaint-denied-appeals-committee-montpellier/
As you can see in the race video below, defending Olympic champion Yannick Agnel of Mulhouse and Jérémy Stravius of Amiens led throughout and were barreling down the last 50. Stravius accelerated and moved ahead to hit the wall in first place, but it appeared that Agnel touched the wall just behind. When the results displayed a few seconds later, however, Jordan Pothain was listed as runner-up ahead of Agnel. The commentators are incredulous and assume it will be corrected in Agnel’s favor.
In the appeals process the referee argued that the video was unofficial and therefore not to be used as evidence, and that after looking over all the data coming from the timing systems they would not overturn the final rankings: 1. Stravius; 2. Pothain; 3. Agnel.
Watching the video, I had the following thoughts:
1- I can’t see how Agnel was denied second place. Even Pothain who came third later conceded that he most likely didn’t beat Agnel;
2- Stravius remains the king of under waters, watch his turn at the 50. At the end, he went into higher gear. I think he had the best strokes and control of his race.
3- Agnel was smooth but swam with less dynamism than in his heydays. His turns were just average which is disappointing since improving them with Bowman had been one of his goals.
Found one on YouTube by searching Agnel 200m 2016. It shows finish, underwater and interview in French of a few people – don’t know enough to tell who they are.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2jcjFYM5ris
Okay, so they took the video down? Why?
Stroke count on Stravius: 24 – 25 – 28 – 32 ftw
I’m hosting a Masters meet this weekend. I will report on how many “soft touches” our pads record on swimmers in their 50’s-60’s-70’s who aren’t swimming has fast or hard as Agnel.
I know that when Colorado timing is used, that “00:00.00” goes up on the board when pad and button times don’t agree. With Daktronics, if the pad isn’t touched, a time won’t go up until there is a strong enough touch on the pad. What’s the deal with Omega? In looking at the TV-feed, with the 1-2-3 lane graphic posted, it is clear that Agnel touches, yet the screen doesn’t flash the 1-2-3 until Pothairn touches, then the order is Stravius-Pothairn-Agnel, so therefore there was a clear problem with how the pad recorded his touch. Referencing my post above, he definitely looked like he had enough momentum to trigger the pad.
It’s also why at meets you will sometimes hear Sam the announcer say, “the results are not official yet”.
I had similar touchpad event @ master’s nationals @ Rutgers 2003. My hand slid down the touchpad off to the lower left instead of head-on. Touchpad time was 4 seconds slower than the ‘real’ time recorded by the hand timers. But: I was given their stopwatch time & the proper place. I feel bad for Agnel.
In this case, his hand didn’t slide down, and they didn’t go to (or at least use) back-ups. I’m glad you were able to get the back-up. I’ve heard of cases in which swimmers intentionally “soft touch” the pads in hopes of getting a slightly faster adjusted time.
Maybe it is too soon, but I would love to see a spoof of this video made that exaggerates how far Agnel was ahead of Pothain. Put him a good 20 meters ahead, maybe using some waterwings. He could stop before the finish, maybe eat a baguette, have an espresso, then he could touch the wall but at the same time not touch the wall…and somehow lose the race.