The Charlotte sectional championship meet, loaded up by pros from the hosts SwimMAC Carolina, is taking on a feel almost like a Grand Prix as much as it does a sectional meet.
One of the headline races was the men’s 50 free, where self-declared best friends, and Olympians, Cullen Jones and Ryan Lochte battled with the likes of Mark Weber and Roy Burch in an all-out, 50 yard splash for glory.
Above is the video of the race, shared by fellow SwimMAC pro Eric Knight.
See the full Saturday finals recap here.
Jones would wind up winning in 19.58, with Lochte just above him taking 2nd in 19.66, Weber touching 3rd in 20.04, and Burch 4th in 20.07. Lochte’s lifetime best is a 19.22 from the 2007 Winter Nationals meet
Lochte, with a wildly different freestyle stroke than we’ve ever seen from him; when he pops up off of the turn, his more familiar gallop can be seen sneaking in, but for the most part he’s using an exclusive high power, high turnover straight armed stroke.
For comparison, below is a video of Lochte in the 200 free at the Austin Grand Prix in January of 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaxjAKbt2EU
None of those 50 times would be invited to the NCAA meet this year. Doing my best McKayla Maroney impression. 🙂
Keep in mind that neither lochte or jones were rested
I agree with Swimfan. Can’t take anything away from these guys going that fast when they aren’t rested!
Could it be that some coaches teach swimmers to employ a completely different freestyle stroke (both under and above the water) when they swim sprint freestyle events? I wonder if it would be possible for a mature swimmer to switch from a stroke to another.
Hopefully someone has filmed the races of Miss Baker.
It would be good to watch the Baker show in video.
Bobo…completely unrelated but did you see your Courtney Harnish went 1:43 and 4:40 at PIAAS in 200/500 free?
Well I do think it’s important to keep in mind the difference between a short-course 50 free and a long course 200 free. Not saying that Lochte hasn’t learned a new trick or too at Swim-MAC, but keep in mind that the turn over for a 50 free is going to be vastly different than that of a 200 free.
Is it just me? Where is the 50 free video?
Try refreshing. There’s a weird Vimeo glitch when we embed it that for some reason it takes a few minutes to show up.
race video is where?