Beijing World Cup Start Lists See Thorpedo in the 100 Free

And the moment we’ve all been waiting for – the big reveal of the Thorpedo in his new digs – the 100 freestyle. We’ll get to see it in Beijing’s famous “Water Cube” beginning tomorrow at the 2nd-to-last stop of the 2011 FINA/Arena World Cup. Remember that this meet, like all World Cup meets, is swum in Short Course Meters.

Thorpe enters the race as the #11 seed with a 49.41. The most recent result for Thorpe in the 100 free, that I can track down, is a prelims swim of 47.84 from the 2005 World Cup stop in Sydney. He was the top seed in the morning heats of that race, but scratched finals, and that was his only swim of the competition. The great South African Ryk Neethling won that race, followed by Ashley Callus and Brett Hawke. Also in that race – Michael Klim and Hawke protege Matt Targett in a battle of master versus pupil – just a few short months before Hawke began at Auburn.

Back to this meet. I think if Thorpe goes anything under a 50.0 will be satisfactory to calm all but the most critical of his critics. He’ll also try his first “double” of his return when he swims the 100 IM later in the session on Day 1. That could mean 4 swims on the day for him. He may scratch the 100 IM final (if he makes it), but I think it would be a positive step if he stuck with it.

The lone American entry in the meet is Lawrence Li, an 18-year old originally out of the Houston area (who swims unattached). Li is unlikely to make much noise, but he is entered in 5 events.

Hidemasa Sano of Japan is not entered in this meet for the 2nd-straight week, which means that series leader Chad le Clos is one decent (not even great) swim from clinching $100,000. That’s gotta be a good feeling for a swimmer as young as him. For all of the swimmers who are concerned about the lack of opportunities to a decent living off of swimming, take a page out of Le Clos’ book. He sacrificed two months to travel around Asia and Europe, and is going to walk away from it with somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 to show for his efforts, as well as hearty one-up for his main sponsor, Arena – And though very good, he’s definitely not the best swimmer in the world.

Expect Australia to again dominate the headlines here, with some good nods to Japan.

For full start lists for each event (not yet complete), click here.
For a list of all of the swimmers entered and their entries, click here.