U.S. swimming nabs another bronze

by Martin Dale-Hench on September 8, 2009

In the second day of swimming competition Tuesday, the U.S. women’s 4x200-meter freestyle relay team captured bronze. Samantha Elam dove into the pool first and swam with some of the best swimmers in the field. When Rebecca Meyers got in next, the U.S. was in fourth behind Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Meyers overtook Belarus for third, a position the Americans never relinquished. The U.S. finished with a time of 9:00.45, four seconds behind Ukraine and 10 seconds behind Russia. There was some controversy about one of the switches by the Russian Federation. Several people in the stands, including coach Seda Ozdemir, thought one of Russians jumped from the starting block too early, before the swimmer in the water touched the wall, but the officials did not rule on the matter. After the race, coach Bob Laughna said he was pleased with what he heard from other countries. “People have come up to me,” he said, “and told me that they were happy to see the Americans making a comeback.” The rest of the day was not as busy for the Americans, with only three individuals swimming in the finals, but they made the best out of every race. “We did really good,” Ozdemir said. “Almost every time, our swimmers dropped their times and many personal bests were made.” Peggy Liang made a surprise appearance in the 200-meter individual medley finals in lane one. She had placed ninth in the preliminaries, qualifying as the first alternate for the final. One of the top eight decided to withdraw from the final, so Liang moved up one spot, and she raced well. After the first 50 meters, the butterfly portion, Liang was in fourth place, and after 100 meters was in the contention for a medal. However, she receded to sixth place during the breaststroke lap. Belarusian Aksana Petrushenka claimed gold. Brian Bennett participated in the 400m freestyle final B, reserved for ninth through 16th seeded from the preliminaries, finishing second in that race with a personal-best 4:21.86, good for 10th overall out of more than 30. Will Landgren also qualified for the 200m backstroke, but decided to withdraw to conserve energy for Wednesday’s races. Jake Hammack placed third in the 200-meter breaststroke final B for 11th overall. Olympic silver medalist Terence Parkin won the final A for the gold. Bennett and Landgren also commented on the changing face of Deaflympics swimming. “The game has changed from four years ago,” Bennett said. “I looked at the times from Australia and I could’ve been in medal contention easily then. I’m not sure why.” Landgren said it’s probably because of the recruiting. The Russian Federation and Ukraine, he said, made a concerted effort to recruit young people to swim and train. Reportedly, Ukraine awards gold-medal winners a large sum of money as incentive, and the Russian team has a swimsuit company, Arena, as a sponsor, which pays for training and equipment. If that’s true, it has paid dividends for these teams. After two days in the water, Russia has four golds, two silvers, and a bronze, out of 12 races. Ukraine has two golds, three silvers, and four bronzes. The two countries have, by far, the most medals among the swimming teams. However, the prospects for the U.S. team are promising with the current core team, the U.S. coach said. “We swam better than yesterday,” Laughna said. “We’re on our way up.”

U.S. swimming nabs another bronze

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