While there were great swims all weekend, one of the highlight's came on Saturday with the shootout. With most event finals the top eight swimmers from preliminaries come back to fight it out for the top spot. However, with the shootout, the top eight swim in four pairs of two in bracket formation. The winners of each bracket come back to take on the other winners until two are left; third place is also decided in a swim off from the losers of the semi-finals. Each of these swims takes place throughout the rest of the evenings events.
In the quarter finals on the men's side Ian Crocker beat out Atiba Wade, Garrett Webber Gale beat out Neil Walker, Josh Baseheart beat out Doug Van Wie, and Calilo Becerra beat out Kicker Vencill. On the women's side you had Rachel Komisarz over Krista Kezbers (Krista is now a Longhorn swimmer, and was a former Chesapeake/Kerr-McGee swimmer as well), Shara Stafford won over Doninique Diezi, Sam Woodward beat out Terra Wilson, and Betsy Webb over Amber Green.
In the Semi-finals Ian Crocker won over Garrett Weber Gale, Josh Baseheart beat out Camilo Becerra, Rachel Komisarz beat Shara Stafford, and Sam Woodward won over Betsy Webb.
Coming into the final shoot out would have been exciting enough, but before the finals of the shoot out, Ian Crocker had one other little event to swim. That was the 500 yard freestyle. Not to mention that he was going against the meet and pool record holder Robert Margalis Jr. Oh, did I mention that these are the nation's top swimmers who don't like to let others win? After 4 minutes and 18 seconds of swimming there was 44/100 of a second difference between the two with Robert Margalis on top. One note, there was a problem with sound on the video listed above and the men's 500 free, and so unlike the rest of the video there is no sound.
After giving out some awards, it was time for the shootout finals. First up was the women's 50 free final featuring Rachel Komisarz, and Sam Woodward. Komisarz won the shoot out with a 21.99 over Woodward's 22.44; both personal best times.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
Stellar job on this, TMT.
2 - Chris Brunson
Margalis went 3:43.14, not 3:34.14. The later would be an American record by over 2 seconds (a record Michael Phelps holds).
Also, Crocker did go 19.4, but I think in the championship final he only beat Baseheart by around a .1 of a second. The results might just show the fastest times sum, but floswimming.org would tell you how much he actually won by in the final.
3 - T. Michael Testi
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the comments
>Margalis went 3:43.14, not 3:34.14.
You are correct, I guess I transposed and even though I went over the numbers a couple of times, I still missed it. Thanks for pointing it out.
>> Also, Crocker did go 19.4, but I think in the championship final he only beat Baseheart by around a .1 of a second.
I agree, it seemed much closer. That night I was standing at the 15 meter mark; which was about the same angle as the camera. But I can only go based on the offical results which had Baseheart at a 19.97 to Crocker's 19.47. As a side note, this was the same time that Garrett Webber Gale had for third place.
In any case, it was exciting.
Thanks again
T.