sqwitter

great weekend of training. big week last week in fact. some solid swims, hard riding and 3 key runs including 6x1mile on 1min rest yesterday chasing mr. cunningham who was nice enough to act as the rabbit and a great track session on wednesday. we're off to OZ on thursday, it's coming quick. I can't believe the season is ending so soon! arg.

CONGRATS TO JORDAN!!! what a race, WHAT A RACE!!! 8:25, won by 15mins. really proves the idea that success is about hard work, attention to details and being relentless. So proud of Jordan. Watch out Hawaii next year. BAM!

and

"Tereza Macel displayed her dominance over the remainder of the field here in Penticton as she won her second Ironman in five weeks and her third Ironman title. She did so by having the fastest swim, bike and run splits on the day."

What a race!!!!

Wow what a place to live.

Dockside again.
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.

Pippa and daddy pastrie and coffee time.

Nothing beats it!

Down at dockside green. Just hangin.
Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
Envoyé sans fil par mon terminal mobile BlackBerry sur le réseau de Bell.

two future CHAMPIONS. now I just need their autographes!

TSN hosting sports center in KINGSTON Ont. and just featured Marathon lake swimmer Jenna Lambert.

http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1695797

Swimmer 'stoked' about 'incredible journey'

Posted By DOUG GRAHAM

This is the fourth story in a series profiling Kingston athletes competing in the Canada Summer Games, Aug. 15-29 in Prince Edward Island.

Saying she is excited to compete in the Canada Summer Games in Prince Edward Island doesn't quite cover it for Harrowsmith's Jenna Lambert.

Swimming in the breaststroke and freestyle races for athletes with disabilities will be one of the highlights of the year for Lambert.

However, for the young woman with a bubbly, out-going personality, the chance to mingle with athletes from across the country also is a big part of the trip.

"I am really stoked for this. It is supposed to be such an incredible journey," Lambert, 18, said.

"It's put together along the lines of a small-scale Olympics with an athletes village. You will get to know your teammates and to meet athletes from other provinces," added Lambert, who was in a similar athletic setting in the spring when she swam for Canada at the Can/Am Games in Edmonton.

"I met and competed against some people there that I am sure I'm going to see again. But there will be new faces, too."

The Canada Games represent a change for Lambert, who was born with cerebral palsy. She has made her name by swimming marathons, including her remarkable feat of becoming the first female with a physical disability to traverse Lake Ontario, a crossing that was completed in July 2006.

Lambert, through her marathon swims, has raised more than $200,000 for the Kingston Y Penguins, a swim team for young people with physical disabilities and their able-bodied siblings.

Lambert's younger sister, Natalie, an able-bodied swimmer, has been able to swim for the Y Penguins, too. Natalie Lambert also is a marathon swimmer.

Although Jenna will swim short distances in the Canada Games, she was quick to shoot down the notion that her marathon swimming days are over.

read more

sqwitter (lazy posting).

sqwitter means twitter, as in short and to the point(ish).

race morning in kelowna. organizing the little things. I can't remember my race morning here in 1992, my first Olympic distance race as a jr. I do remember after the race Mike Greenburg stole the zipp front wheel I had borrowed and hide it in the closet, I seem to recall being just a little pissed.... I finished 16th jr that day, Stephen Timms likely won. I think I rode a badass trek 5200 I would have borrowed from Clive Morgan in Kingston. Brandon Hollywood and I didn't make Team Ontario and the day before the race we had to watch from our motel room as the team got their Ontario race singlets from Coach Barrie. That puts some fire in your belly as a 17 year old.

17 years later.... I have electronic shifting!!! and a serious coffee habit. oh and I don't have to borrow bikes any more.

off for more breakfast. enough of the nostalgia.

water.

from www.slowtwitch.com meet Lisa Norden

The 2007 U23 World Champion Lisa Norden has matured quite a bit and sits in second place in the Dextro Energy ITU World Championship Series. She is currently in Yokohama, Japan and had a few words with slowtwitch.

Slowtwitch: Big race in Yokohama coming up this weekend. How do you feel?

Lisa: I’m actually really good at the moment. Had one of those nice lazy days with not much to do. Banned myself from TV and internet for a good couple of hours, was really bored and now can’t wait to race! Had enough time to get the travel out of my legs and also adjusted to the time zone without any major drama.

ST: Who do you see as your biggest competitors there?

Lisa: Wow, there are so many fast girls out there now. So many races have been decided through a sprint as we all pretty much can run the same pace. Even though the field is quite small there are some high class athletes, Spirig, Hewitt, May, Sweetland, Haskins and my training partner Daniela to name a few.

ST: It was very close in London. Were you surprised about Nicola Spirig’s sprint?

Lisa: Nah, I know she is a very strong girl. The week before she just outsprinted Daniela (Ryf) in a double mini sprint race, so I knew she had some good speed in her legs.

ST: I believe that was your 3rd second place this season. Although clearly there are tons of athletes who would love to be in your shoes, is it a bit frustrating to miss out on the top spot?

Lisa: Haha, well yes I guess to some extend. I was stoked in Madrid and very happy with the Hamburg result. Then I really would have liked to get the win in London. But to be honest; I almost wrote the season off early this year. I struggled with a knee injury for three months and didn’t start running again until April. Never thought I was going to get fast enough for a podium at all.

For the rest of the interview go to slowtwitch.com

I haven't seen this movie yet and Bill Maher is annoying but.....

I haven't seen this movie yet and Bill Maher is annoying but.....

my little girl is away in Saskatoon where's she's getting her feet dirty!!!!

he was a phenom at age 15!!!

Greatest endurance athlete of all time? I think so.

video from Critical Mass Vancouver - interesting to see peoples reactions and how much fun the cyclists were having.

incredible photo gallery of leadville 100

http://www.slowtwitch.com/photos/Detailed/61.html

you can't have too many bikes can you?

after reading about leadville 100 today and LAnce winning it now I want to do it (maybe I'll shy away from breaking the record....).

So I'll need a kick ass MTB. I was thinking a Trek Fuel 6.6, only because Cervelo doesn't make MTb's.

I also want this bike. by EZra

kinda makes me want to cheer for the Yankee's.

Ok, I can't but this is a great story.

Camp Sundown shines in the Bronx

The Yankees' best game this season came after the lights were dimmed

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By Rick Reilly
ESPN The Magazine
Archive

This column appears in the Aug. 24 issue of ESPN The Magazine.

Courtesy New York YankeesBurnett stayed into the early-morning hours to pitch Wiffle balls to campers.

The team facing Yankees ace A.J. Burnett a few weeks back at Yankee Stadium has to go down as the oddest in baseball history.

For one thing, it plays only at night. The players have no choice. Even one minute of sunshine can kill them.

They're from Camp Sundown, in Craryville, N.Y., and they live life on the other side of the sun. All of them have the rare disease known as XP -- xeroderma pigmentosum. If kids with XP catch the slightest UV ray, they can and do develop cancerous tumors. Even fluorescent lights fry their skin like boiling oil. Most of them don't live to be 20.

So how could they take the field at Yankee Stadium? Because this was 3 a.m. Superstar right-handers should be tucked into bed by then, yet there was Burnett, throwing Wiffle-ball splitters and chasing down line drives.

There is no cure for XP. If you're born with it, you're one in a million. There are only 250 known cases in the U.S. Until Camp Sundown was founded 14 years ago by Caren and Dan Mahar, whose daughter Katie has the disease, few of these kids had met anyone else with XP. For most of them, Yankee Stadium was the first MLB ballpark they'd ever seen -- and probably it will be the last.

Getting here wasn't easy.

To make the seven-foot trip from the front door of Camp Sundown to the curtained bus with double-tinted windows that took them to Yankee Stadium, all the XPers had to wear hats, tinted eye shields, vats of sunblock, turtlenecks, long-sleeve shirts, long pants and gloves. Even with all that, they ran.

Because they couldn't leave until the sun was almost down, and because it was a three-hour drive, they knew they'd be able to see only the last couple of innings of the game. But then it rained, causing a more-than-two-hour rain delay. While the rest of the crowd cursed, the campers rejoiced. How lucky can you get? The bus arrived just before the first pitch. "It was almost like the game was waiting for them to show up," Yankees GM Brian Cashman said. "That kind of gave us goosebumps."

To get the kids out of the bus and into their VIP suite for the game, Yankees media-relations director Jason Zillo -- the man who dreamed up the whole night -- had to take them on a rat's route of back staircases and tunnels to avoid any fluorescent lights. After the Yankees beat the A's 6-3, the stadium lights had to be dimmed to 30 percent. Once they were, all the kids came running onto the field with smiles that could've lit up the Bronx.

"It's cool to be part of this," said Burnett, whom Zillo forced to leave at 3:15. "And it's kind of mind-boggling. I can't imagine if I couldn't take my children outside."

Eleven ghostly-pale XP campers took the field, including Yuxnier Beguebara, who is coming up on 71 operations, and Kevin Swinney, who has had over 200, and the rest of them, grinning through faces operated on so many times they seem to be covered in plastic. Feel sorry for them if you want, but they have one thing most kids will never have: For one night, the Yankees' field was theirs.

Courtesy New York YankeesCashman and Aceves play a little Police for the campers.

They high-fived Derek Jeter, ran madly around the bases and wallowed in the instant carnival the Yankees had set up -- from the magician to the bouncy castle to reliever Alfredo Aceves strolling the yard, strumming his guitar while Cashman sang the Police's "Message in a Bottle." For one night, at least, these kids found out they are not alone in being alone.

Not that they don't play baseball at Camp Sundown. They do -- at midnight, to the accompaniment of owls and bullfrogs -- against the local fire department. "We're pathetic," says Caren Mahar. "But we always play."

By 3:30, it was time to go, and there was no time to waste. They had to make it back to Camp Sundown before sunup. Welcome to life lived like a vampire.

On board the bus, Katie Mahar, 17, was whipped. Her hearing is down to 50 percent, and her vision is going fast, and her words are starting to lack vowels. But anybody could understand her as she kept saying, "That was a blast! What a blast!"

And I keep thinking of my friend Jason Zillo and the 14 years it took him to make this night happen.

"I saw one little girl," he said afterward, exhausted. "When the centerfield wall opened and the whole carnival started coming out -- she just started jumping up and down, over and over. She wouldn't stop, she was so excited. People wanted to thank me. But that's all I needed."

And you thought the warmest light came only from above.

"If the only tool is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail," finally!!!

Are they finally starting to think this through?

Commentary: War on drugs is over. What's next?

• Story Highlights
• Rudy Ruiz: U.S. drug official says "war on drugs" is an outmoded term
• Ruiz says U.S., Mexico must create job opportunities for youth
• He says Mexico's war on drugs has resulted in 12,000 dead since 2008
• Opportunities are needed on both sides of the border, he says

By Rudy Ruiz
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Rudy Ruiz founded RedBrownandBlue.com, a site featuring multicultural political commentary; hosts a nationally syndicated Spanish-language radio show; and authored a guide to success for immigrants ("¡Adelante!" published by Random House). He is co-founder and president of Interlex, an advocacy marketing agency based in San Antonio, Texas.

Rudy Ruiz says a strategy to fight drugs requires U.S. and Mexico to improve economic opportunities.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (CNN) -- As the health care debate captivated America, a white flag was quietly raised along the violence-torn U.S.-Mexico border. In case you missed it, it was our nation's surrender in the war on drugs.

Addressing the sixth annual Border Security Conference in El Paso, Texas, on Monday, the director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, R. Gil Kerlikowske, said this administration's drug strategy will not be a war because a war limits what can be done.

"If the only tool is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail," Kerlikowske said. "That phrase -- war on drugs -- tells you that the only answer is, in fact, force. ... We want to have a different conversation when it comes to drugs."

At the same time, President Obama pledged ongoing cooperation with Mexico on drugs and immigration, but the details were sparse and the timeline shifting and uncertain.

As the war on drugs ends, what's our new strategy?

According to the El Paso Times, "Kerlikowske said his visit to El Paso was part of a national tour to solicit ideas before making recommendations to the president. Once unveiled, Obama's drug strategy will probably include treatment centers, education, drug courts, more cooperation with Mexico and increased law enforcement, Kerlikowske said."

Don't Miss

• White House to combat drug demand with rehab
• Obama talks drugs, trade on Mexico visit
• In Depth: Commentaries

I agree with all of the above, but since Kerlikowske asked, and since both he and the president have been somewhat vague and noncommittal on the topic, I would like to suggest some ideas regarding what "cooperation with Mexico" should look like to ensure our communal success in conquering the drug beast, regardless of the brand name attached to the campaign.

If decreasing demand for drugs is one side of the equation, decreasing the ability and desire to supply those drugs is the other side. As the United States broadens its approach, Mexico must do so as well.

"Cooperation with Mexico" involves convincing our neighbors to change culturally entrenched social hierarchies and dynamics that date to pre-Columbian times.

Unfortunately, it's easier and less disruptive to the existing power structure perpetuated by Mexico's ruling elite to wage a war against the cartels than it is to revolutionize a society that denies the vast majority of its members legitimate opportunities for socioeconomic advancement.

Yes, the war on drugs in Mexico has resulted in over 12,000 dead since 2008 and turned border cities like Juarez into combat zones overrun by army trucks carrying machine gun-toting armored troops.

But most of Mexico's wealthy and powerful families can still find solace in their foreign bank accounts, their well-appointed homes north of the border, their bodyguards and multigenerational business empires.

Perhaps to them, the continuing crackdown on the cartels seems like the most effective way to react to the threats made to legitimate business-owners and affluent families via extortion and kidnapping.

However, the Mexican government, the Mexican ruling class and the United States must also generate legitimate opportunities for Mexican citizens to advance in life, alternatives to achieving financial success without breaking the law.

According to a study by professor Emilio Parrado of the University of Pennsylvania, "Occupational opportunities failed to keep pace with rising human capital in Mexico. ... Instead, entry and mobility into good jobs became more difficult to achieve and downward mobility more prevalent even among highly educated workers."

At the same time, north of the border, politicians have increased pressure to close our borders and squelch illegal immigration since September 11.

Where are hard-working Mexicans with a desire to improve their circumstances supposed to turn? Perhaps both nations should give these folks a little more love and a little less war.

Let's make love, not war, on drugs. Although today's drug lords are beyond reform, this is a long-term endeavor. Our nations should collaborate to ensure that Mexico's youth can find viable, legal alternatives for their own development and advancement, both at home in Mexico and abroad in the United States.

In Mexico, this will involve a cultural shift in which the ruling elite comes to terms with the realization that the nation will never fulfill its potential if broader segments of its population are not empowered to advance socially and economically via legitimate means.

It means accelerated democratization of the educational and economic system and increased opportunities for entrepreneurship, access to capital, sociopolitical progress and upward mobility.

On the United States side, it means further opening trade, stimulating foreign investment in Mexico and reforming immigration to allow for guest workers from Mexico to be legal, productive members of the economy and society.

In the eyes of this border native, that's what "cooperation" should look like. Combined, our countries can channel the energies and talents of future generations away from the destructive and unsustainable allure of drugs and toward the enduring productivity and prosperity of our hemisphere.

I'm not sure yet what we should call that process. All I know is, it takes a little love.

lmpact beyond sport

Ian Thorpe: Australia’s dirty little secret

by Ian Thorpe

In a speech given at the “Beyond Sport Summit” in London on Thursday July 9, 2009, Australian Olympic legend Ian Thorpe dove head first into Australia’s failure to address the problems in its indigenous communities.

Ladies and Gentlemen, first may I thank you all for participating in this wonderful event. I am incredibly excited to be able to address you in regards to Beyond Sport.

For me this is an ambiguous topic.

As you may or may not be aware I am indeed an Olympian, I am no longer competing as a swimmer. I do take pride in my achievements in the pool and the valuable insight and education it has allowed me to take on, as I travelled the globe throughout my career.

When we speak of athletes there is a great deal that we know, like what is required of them, for me that meant 30 hours of training a week. We do this training just so we have a sporting chance to fulfil our life long dreams.

My travels with my sport since I was a very young and shy 14 year old opened the world to me, I didn’t realise at the time that this adventure would turn into a career beyond my wildest dreams.

I was the youngest male to ever represent Australia in swimming. By 15 I was the youngest ever male world champion. At 16 I broke four world records in four days and at 17 I was Olympic Champion, I had fulfilled my life long ambition as a child. I quickly realised I was a child in an adult world.

It was the child in me that throughout my career questioned why? Why is it so? Why is it done that way and why is the world the way it is?

In my travels, competition took me to places where sometimes I was met with abject poverty, whilst I simply swum. Why was my life so blessed when others just by fate had less opportunity than I? I guess I witnessed at a very young age how sport is an international language, a language that transcended borders, boundaries, cultural ideology, politics and even socio economic disadvantage.

I have only discussed my career up to when I was seventeen. It is because when I was 18 I established my charity, “Fountain for youth”. I didn’t realise at the time that this may be my biggest accomplishment. An achievement not in the sense of doing something right, rather a stepping stone where my values that I had gained from sport could be transferred to something that is bigger than sport and in my opinion far more important.

That said, sport was what has made me who I am today and has afforded me the privilege to work beyond sport. My charity work didn’t begin at 18, I was just 15 when I began working with those less fortunate then myself. It was those years that shaped my understanding of what charity was. It gave me an insight into the power of celebrity and sport, especially in sport mad Australia.

I realised my value to organisations trying to bring positive change lent enormous weight to these causes. I must say though this should be an outrage, because as an athlete I am not as qualified to comment on health or education as the health professionals and educators who daily tackle the big issues. In fact it is a bit disappointing that a teenager’s opinion garnered more attention than those who had been working on their chosen causes before I was even born. This realisation of the opportunity that my voice and name could lend to an excellent cause was the simple foundation laid, for my very own charity.

I continued to win medals, breaking world records and continued travelling around the world recognising the needs of people, particularly children, in many places I visited. By this time my charity had enough money raised to commit to larger projects, I sat at a board meeting and stated that I wanted to help the world’s neediest children.

I started to think of what impact my effort could have in places like Africa or South East Asia. I then visited some of the worlds neediest communities, places without access to planes and cars that seemed to be a world away … but now they were truly at my back door.

The communities that I visited had illiteracy levels at 93% … that was staggering only seven percent of a populous being able to read and write. Up to 80% of the children in these communities have serious hearing impairments because of “glue ear”; middle ear infections neglected from infancy. These kids will never hear the teacher in front of them in a classroom … that is, if there is a teacher and indeed a classroom.

Malnourished mothers are giving birth to babies that are seriously underweight and this only gets worse throughout a life born into poverty. Here diabetes affects one in every two adults. Kidney disease is in epidemic proportions in communities where living conditions; primary healthcare and infrastructure are truly appalling.

In this part of the world even the community leaders are afflicted by clusters of chronic illness. Syndrome X, the doctors call it, diabetes, renal disease, strokes, hypertension, cancer and heart disease. Some people die with four or five of these chronic illnesses.

Rheumatic heart disease among the children in these places is higher than in most of the developing world. But I was not visiting communities in the developing world, I was in the middle of Australia, remote, yes, but this is Australia, a country that can boast some of the highest standards of living of any nation in the world. How shocked I was that Syndrome X was afflicting so many of the 460, 000 Indigenous people of my country. As a result of these chronic illnesses and conditions Aboriginal life expectancy has fallen twenty years behind the rest of Australia. For some of my fellow countrymen life expectancy had plunged to just 46 years.

Australia’s grim record on health care for Indigenous people is by far the worst of any developed nation. Developed? How can a country be “developed” when it leaves so many of its children behind? Australia has not provided its citizens with an equal opportunity for primary health care, education, housing, employment, let alone recognition and a life of dignity.

Now I don’t expect you to just take my word for it. I am not a Doctor, I am simply an athlete. But ask Australian health professionals like Doctor Jim Hyde who says that while our nation has plenty of medical problems, only Indigenous Australians are facing a genuine health crisis.

The Governor of NSW, my home State, Professor Marie Bashir, an eminent Child Psychiatrist, has repeatedly pointed out the national disgrace of allowing the forty per cent of Indigenous children under the age of fifteen to put up with health problems found in no other developed nation. Patrick Dodson, winner of the Sydney Peace Prize and one of out greatest Statesmen, identifies health as a human right for Indigenous Australians.

“Only the most urgent government action”, said Australia’s “Father of Reconciliation”, “could change the inequality that has created this health tragedy in our own backyard.”

How could citizens with the greatest need be so under funded? If we were to indeed recognise the severity of this gross neglect, funding to these communities should be extradited.

A commitment to the first Australians is well within the means of my country, and this is what I find inexcusable. I am talking about an issue with a solution. For Australia to heal its wounds that have been weeping for 200 years we must not ignore the issue, we must start the healing.

Like many people in Australia I was completely unaware of the huge gap in health and education outcomes let alone the differences of life expectancy. I, as many had, made an assumption; Australia is a rich country, don’t we throw a lot of money at that problem? It disgusts me to speak those words now but that was what I thought. This was not just my lack of knowledge of this area but it is echoed throughout my nation.

An Aboriginal health expert, Shane Houston says:

Aboriginal people are viewed by too many in the Australian community as an unwelcome burden on the nation. Governments say they have spent a lot of money on Aborigines but where do you see the results in this squalor? So the mainstream concludes that Aboriginal health is a waste of money. It is all the fault of the poor blacks.

My people are somehow expected to just extricate themselves from this maze of life-threatening conditions. And if we can’t manage to do that, then many white people will shrug and say our end is inevitable.

Visiting Aboriginal people, in their homes, their communities, on their land, has allowed me to listen and given me some idea of the problems that Aboriginal people face. I listened to the concerns of mothers and fathers for the betterment of their children. This unwavering strength, in the face of social injustice. Within these communities I witness poverty, despair and pain … but I also see hope … hope from those men and woman who want more for their children.

With the words of these people in my head, I became part of a campaign in Australia called; “Close the Gap”, it is quite simply a program that recognises the difference between Indigenous and non Indigenous life expectancy in Australia and the huge gaps in all of the factors like education, jobs and housing that leave Aboriginal people so deeply disadvantaged.

Close the Gap is a commitment that this difference is unacceptable. It was supported by the Government and also the opposition. This is the kind of action that is required in Australia. The issue of Indigenous health and education goes beyond government, it is a fundamental right. I hope all sides of government continue to commit to this policy as a starting point and it is not another hollow promise that falls short.

Just this week Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd said that it was “devastating” that a new report by our productivity commission showed that Aboriginal people had made little progress to close those gaps since 2000. He said this was “unacceptable” and “decisive action” had to be taken. The truth is that none of the problems I have mentioned can truly be rectified until our government and my fellow Australians recognise the injustice faced by Aboriginal Australians and how they are denied so many human rights.

This has been highlighted once again by what is called in Australia “The Intervention”, the Federal Government’s takeover of 73 remote Aboriginal communities.

The Intervention was constructed by the previous government and has since been reported to have been assembled in the space of just one day. The irony is that Aboriginal people had been campaigning for decades about the living conditions and the neglect of their children within their communities. The programs to protect and nurture the children, had been grossly neglected and under funded by government over the last decade. What appears to be a political stunt and a grab for government control over Aboriginal people continues to this day under the new government.

Once more an Australian government has claimed it is doing its best for Aboriginal Australians by taking over their communities, appointing white managers, more government bureaucrats, promising all kinds of things, if Aboriginal people will just sign over their communities under forty year leases to the Federal Government. And politicians wonder why Aboriginal people do not trust them.

The truth is for over 200 years Australian governments have neglected and patronized Aboriginal people.

The Intervention is unlikely to provide any lasting benefit to Aboriginal people because it tries to push and punish them, to take over their lives, rather than work with them. One of Australia’s oldest and wisest Aboriginal leaders, Galawuy Yunupingu says the only way forward is for Aboriginal communities in these remote areas to be led and organised by their own organisations. Assimilation will not work.

So in the work I do, the way I try to contribute through my organisation, Fountain for Youth, we work with Aboriginal teachers, health workers, parents and children, with the health services and the schools, to encourage people to believe that we can move forward together. We support pre-schooling, health education, literacy backpacks that let kids carry home reading for the whole family. And we use sport where we can to make a difference.

As a swimmer, who would have thought I would have ended up supporting Flipper Ball, junior water polo for little Aboriginal kids in the mining communities of Western Australia. As a swimmer, who would have thought I would be back at university studying psychology and at the same time working with young Aboriginal university graduates on a mentoring program to help get more kids to complete High School and go on with their studies. As a swimmer, maybe I was expected to just be satisfied with the gleam of those gold medals. But all sportsmen and women know the truth — there is something beyond sport.

There is the challenge of playing a part in the human family … to contribute and make a difference. We can use sport and use our sporting status to improve the lives of children and whole communities in so many places. We can make it a fairer, safer playing field for everyone.

In twenty remote Australian communities and with thousands of Aboriginal children I know life will have some extra opportunities if I commit to work hard on this.

I do intend to work hard at this for the rest of my life.

That is my promise to you — beyond sport!

sqwitter

sqwitter (short lazy posting)

had a post swim meeting with the book publishers at Orca books, we have a book coming out in the fall and the final manuscript meeting was today. "Simon says Gold" in pursuit of athletic excellence. Orca books has done a great job, it will be fun to see the first copy in print.

and now I'm signing 120 "HELL YEAH" posters from the Hy-Vee race. I think in the end we will have raised over $6000 for charity with the sale of the posters. I'll need a hand operation by the time I'm done signing them all, anyone know a good specialist?

big week of training coming up. Coach is throwing it at me this week. Intervals everyday. 12x1min/1min today on the bike, more tomorrow with a solid tempo off the bike. track wednesday. more thursday. more friday. more saturday. Sunday is for rest.

it's raining here. we need it.

sqwitter out.

it seems my old highschool KCVI produces quite the athletes.

WEARING THREE HATS SUITS HER JUST FINE
Kingston Whig Standard
August 8, 2009
www.thewhig.com




This is the first story in a series profiling Kingston athletes competing in the Canada Summer Games, Aug. 15-29 in Prince Edward Island.

Dorelle Hinton seems to enjoy multi-tasking.

The Kingston Collegiate graduate, who grew up swimming for the Kingston Blue Marlins and competing in track and field and cross-country at high school, has developed a serious love for triathlon.

"Every day of training is different and it brings new challenges," Hinton, 20, said. "Lots of people ask, 'How can you train for all three sports, the swimming, biking and running?'

"But I have a blast doing every single (discipline). It's never monotonous for me. I enjoy every single moment of racing."

The decision to focus on triathlon has paid off for Hinton, who has been training at the Ontario Provincial Triathlon Centre in Guelph while attending school at the University of Guelph the past two years.

A first-time winner on the short course at the K-Town Tri last weekend, Hinton's next stop is Prince Edward Island, where she will represent Ontario at the Canada Summer Games.

Full article here.

Shoemaker has officially arrived! (stolen fro www.slowtwitch.com)

I know I know, Jarrods been around for awhile. US Olympian, World Jr. Champ, etc, etc. but not at the level he's at now. Winning.

America’s top man in ITU racing new

Written by: Timothy Carlson
Date: Fri Aug 07 2009

American men in the ITU short course, non-drafting, Olympic-style have risen from also-rans in the mid-1990s to contenders for greatness in this decade. Led by Hunter Kemper, Andy Potts and Matt Reed, American men keep knocking on the door. Consider Hunter Kemper’s ITU World Cup number 1 ranking in 2005, Andy Potts’ Number 3 season ranking in 2006, and Matt Reed’s World Cup series charge to gain the points that put three American men into the 2008 Olympics.

And yet, despite Kemper’s four victories and Andy Potts’ three wins in ITU World Cup combat, and Matt Reed’s second place World Cup finish in the heat of his 2008 campaign, no American male has won gold at the ITU Olympic distance World Championship since Mark Allen in 1989 and no American man has won a medal of any kind at the ITU Olympic distance World Championship since Mike Pigg’s third place at the 1991 ITU Worlds.

Right now, America’s Big Three in ITU World Cup, short course triathlons have wider interests than the hyper competitive, pure Olympic-style racing. Kemper has won non-drafting big paydays at Life Time Fitness and took a prestigious win at Escape From Alcatraz – but he is also out of action, recovering from an old hip injury. Potts has ruled Escape From Alcatraz, won an Ironman 70.3 World Championship and his entry at this year’s Ironman World Championship is eagerly awaited since his 7th place finish last year on virtually zero long distance training. Matt Reed has shown that he can swim, bike and run with the best in the world in both draft-legal and non-drafting venues and seems to be taking dead aim on the Ironman 70.3 Worlds this year. But his 5th at the ITU World Championship in 2008 remains the high-water mark for current U.S. men in World Championship and Olympic level competition.

In 2009, as the international fields have become faster and deeper, another American man has become a prominent player in the ITU world. Jarrod Shoemaker now stands 5th in the new ITU World Championship points series. Just before turning 27 years of age, Shoemaker just won the Hamburg round of the Dextro Energy World Championship series. Thanks to hard-earned improvement in the swim, previously a crippling weakness in ITU racing, Shoemaker has been able display a run that stands among the very best in an increasingly swift-footed group of runners.

Consider the facts: In two ITU World Cup events and five ultracompetitive World Championship series races in 2009, Jarrod Shoemaker has had the fastest run split twice, the second-fastest run three times, and recorded the third-fastest run once. Those run splits varied from a slow 31:32 at a tactical race at Hy-Vee to a 30:49, a 30:36 and a 30:28 at reasonably accurate 10ks at Madrid, Tongyeong, and Washington D.C., plus a race-best 29:37 at Hamburg [which has proven to be 200 to 300 meters short.] During this string, Shoemaker has out split the likes of World Champions Javier Gomez and Bevan Docherty, multiple World Cup winners Brad Kahlefeldt and current ITU sensation Alistair Brownlee, Olympic champions Jan Frodeno and Simon Whitfield,

Of course, Olympic style triathlon is three disciplines, and despite his improvement on all fronts, Shoemaker is still learning swimming, biking and run strategy. This shows in Shoemaker’s overall finishes: 8th at Ishigaki, 6th at Tongyeong, 12th at Madrid, 8th at Washington D.C., 5th in a six-man, last-lap shootout at Hy-Vee, a DNF in freezing rain at Kitzbuhel, and his impressive, hard-earned win at Hamburg.

While the run has become the key to ITU World Cup-World Championship series victory, pure 10k speed needs to be mixed with canny, mid-race strategy. Like Javier Gomez, Shoemaker does not have the final 100-meter sprint speed of Frodeno, Whitfield, Docherty, Brownlee and Kris Gemmell. Hence Shoemaker’s fade to 5th (and Gomez to 6th) in the six-man duel to the line at Hy-Vee. Having learned his lesson about waiting for the end in a strategic race at Hy-Vee, Shoemaker blazed all the way at Hamburg and left Kahlefeldt and other contenders in his dust for a prestigious win against a group of top-tier Germans on their home court.

By focusing strictly on the ITU circuit and learning its intricacies, Shoemaker thus has emerged as America’s best bet for a men’s ITU World Championship series medal this year.

Shoemaker shared his thoughts about the 2009 season with Slowtwitch in an interview prior to the rollout of 2012 Olympic course at the Dextro Energy World Championship Series round six August 16 in London.

On his improved swim

In my triathlon career, I have had some good swims and bad swims. The good ones set me up for good races. So I really worked on biomechanics and form this offseason to get more power out of each stroke. Over the winter I worked with coach Rich Axtell at Team Minuteman Masters on several things. We did a lot of stroke work. And we also did a lot of work thinking about races and how they unfold and how best to train for them. One key element was to really set up a plan for the whole swim. You don’t just go out and swim 1500 meters as hard as you can. If you fire off at the start and race blindly, you expel more energy and waste energy going around buoys. You need to swim with your head up and then accelerate again when things open up.

It’s one of those things when you learn how to do it you understand it. It is not about swimming hard. It’s about swimming smart. I tell friends you have to shoot the gap and take off when you see the opportunity. It’s like riding a horse in the Derby. When you see a spot open on the rail you take it. When the way is blocked, you can sit behind, thinking: OK, I will rest. I will wait patiently until things open up. Then I will have acceleration and power when I need it to pick up speed and settle in and establish a faster pace.

I felt like my training was going good all winter long through March and April. But it is hard to get an indication in the pool or open water swimming with friends just how you will perform in a race. I think at Ishigaki [in his first race of the season] I was surprised how well I swam and how good I felt through the whole swim. In the past, I would feel good one lap, and then fade. This time I picked off spots the second lap.

How he won his 2005 U23 World Championship title

I had a pretty bad swim there too. But that bike course was flat, fast and hot and the bike slowed down and the field got all packed up. Obviously, it is better to come off the bike near the front and stay out of trouble. While I could not afford to do that at the Olympics three years later, in 2005 I was one of the best runners in Under 23 and I came off towards the back and then I ran through the field. That is one of those things there are two ways you can look at it. One, if you give someone a lead off the bike, they have a lead and you have to work to get it back. At the same time, if the run is your strong suit, I would rather run at a faster speed than put extra effort on the bike. Triathlons are an overall energy equation. Of course it is better to be at the front of a big bike pack, and if the chance is there you take it. But in 2005, I had the run to get the job done. In 2005, the guy I passed for the win was Danylo Zapunov of the Ukraine, who is still racing great today.

First race of 2009 – Ishigaki World Cup

I got out of the water at Ishigaki in 17:17, 14th position and 36 seconds off the front. I just missed the front group of the chasers. Those guys in the front pack got a huge gap on our group and stayed away. So I dragged myself into the 8th position with the second-best run [31:03] and finished 8th.

First World Championship Series race of 2009– Tongyeong, South Korea

Next weekend in Tongyeong was an eye opener for me that showed my work on swimming was paying off. Before, I always had problems swimming in a wetsuit. But this day I was third out of the water [in 18:11] That also helps build confidence, having good swims with regularity.

In Tongyeong all the cyclists came together, which was fine with me. I felt awesome and had a lot of energy starting the run and went into the lead. Then I got a side stitch and fell back to 10th or 11th. But on the last lap I came good again and ran back up to 6th. [In Tongyeong, Shoemaker ran a third-fastest 30:36].

Second World Championship Series race – Madrid, Spain

I did not have quite as good a swim in Madrid and came out of the water 24th, 39 seconds back. In terms of the swim, it was not a big deal at all. I felt good in the swim but I lost someone’s feet. On the bike I was in a chase pack of 10-11 guys but somebody in our group let the breakaway group get a gap and they kept going. On the run, I was right with Jan Frodeno [2008 Olympic champion] and Brad Kahlefeldt [2nd at Tongyeong] in the last 300 meters. I felt good because I was running with the best runners in the sport. At the finish we came up on two other runners and I got outsprinted and finished 12th. [Still, Shoemaker recorded a 30:39 10k, second-fastest run 18 seconds slower than winner Alistair Brownlee].

Third World Championship Series race – Washington D.C.

[In this race, Alistair Brownlee, Javier Gomez, Maik Petzold, Andy Potts and Hunter Kemper got a small gap on the swim and then broke away on the bike, leaving the chasers 2 minutes back starting the run]

What happened was those guys were working together but our guys were not working. It definitely was a frustrating race. I knew I was in good shape and I would have loved to have been on podium in D.C. and felt like I could have done it. When we got out of the water, the gap was 20 or 30 seconds and we should have caught them. But certain people in our pack weren’t interested.

The thing was in many of those earlier races I did a lot of work in those packs. In Washington DC, the last few laps of the bike I tried to take back a few seconds and get the gap down to 1:30 so I could have a better shot at catching Andy and Hunter.

I remembered in a lot of earlier races I had done a lot of work up at the front of the run. After one lap, I tried to get the tempo up, and while doing that I burned off some steam. So then I backed off and tried to fit back in the pack, recover a bit, then go again. Any time you are at the front running, although not as much as in the bike, other people definitely can draft off you. The other side of the coin is if you sit in pack, you do not run as fast as you can individually. You get complacent and drop into a tempo pace.

Finally, Jan Frodeno surged halfway through the run and Laurent Vidal put in a long kick and both of them got me at the line and I took 8th. [Shoemaker’s 30:28 run was second to Frodeno’s race-best 30:26 and faster than Vidal’s third-best 30:29. All of them ran faster than winner Alistair Brownlee’s 31:00 run, but they had lost the race on the bike]

Lessons learned in the $200,000 duel at the Hy-Vee World Cup

I had an awful swim. At the first turn buoy, there was a little chaos so I went wide and ended up going a long way past. There were so many people who got to the buoy at the same time, they were 10 wide. It was more than a 90-degree turn around the buoy so I ended up losing even more time. I was almost last after the first lap of the swim, but at same time, with the confidence I got from previous races, I believed I could pick things up. On the second lap, I thought about what Simon Whitfield said after a bad first lap in the swim at Tongyeong: “My race is not over. My race is now to see how I can pass as many people as possible on the second lap.” That was all I thought about at the time – to pass as many people as possible. When I came out of the water, I think I was about 30th and trailed by about 15-20 seconds starting the bike.

We did a lot of chasing on the bike in that race. My pack worked really hard and I think Bevan [Docherty] and Clark Ellice and I were about a minute back of Matt Reed and Stuart Hayes and a couple seconds back of the main chase pack starting the run. [Tim Don and Danylo Sapunov were also ahead of Shoemaker, 20 seconds back of Reed and Hayes, but were also run down]

Off the bike, I think I was one third of the field off the lead. I think the fast guys caught those lead guys about 1k into the run and we had the lead before the first of four laps. Then I just stayed with [Gomez, Whitfield, Kahlefeldt, Gemmell and Frodeno] at a very high rate of speed.

After the race, I was not happy with myself. Looking back, Simon Whitfield actually went off the back a few times, but nobody made a move to drop him out of the front pack. Nobody made a move to win, and after two laps, the pace actually dropped. We were definitely slower the last two laps.

With a few hundred meters to go, I was ready to go on a sprint and I tried to go inside on one of the final corners, but I got pinched off and boxed out. And then they were gone. I think was ready to go but I don't know if I would have been able to sustain the sprint speed the guys had because I had lost so much momentum.

One thing I learned was that those guys can sprint really fast, faster than it looks. Later it mentally frustrated me to realize that in order to win I could not sit there and hope something happens. I realized that with a mile to go, I needed to make a long hard surge.

Still I came away with good feelings. The big thing I took out of it was that I had another great race and I was consistently running with the best guys in world in our sport. I was running with men who won two Olympic gold medals [Whitfield placed 1st at Hy-Vee and won Olympic gold in 2000 and Frodeno was 3rd at Hy-Vee and won Olympic gold in 2008], and Kahlefeldt [2nd] and Kris Gemmell [4th] have won lots of races and made tons of podiums. That to me was another important confidence builder.

World Championship Series race four – Kitzbuhel

I raced Kitzbuhel and had an amazing swim [15th, 23 seconds off the lead swimmer] there and I got out in the front pack. But it was freezing and raining and I was so cold and I was shivering so much I could not control the bike and I dropped out and it frustrated me. That race Brownlee and Gomez fought it out and Brownlee won and Gomez was 2nd. I really look forward to going against those guys.

World Championship Series Race 5 – Hamburg

I had not even planed to race there. But I ended up staying in Kitzbuhel and trained there for a week and a half. Basically I had very tough, really hard training. I wanted to push myself and going into that race I had great run workouts and I felt really good. On race day it was raining for the girls but by the time we raced, the weather was gorgeous, in the 70s and sunny. And Hamburg with all people there is an amazing venue to race.

I was disappointed that Brownlee and Gomez did not race Hamburg. But the Frodeno and Kahlefeldt were there and the Germans were all good, all inspired on their home course. Maik Petzold was going very well [4th at Madrid, 3rd at Washington D.C., 4th at Kitzbuhel] and [2007 ITU World Champion] Daniel Unger won Hamburg two years in a row.

I did not get a good start on the swim and I was maybe 40th at the first buoy. Halfway back to the turnaround point on the first lap, I recognized that I had an opportunity to pick off places on that long straight and I swam back up to 15th and I stayed in that position [31 seconds back from the lead] coming on to the bike.

There was a little separation in transition and I missed the first [pack]. I wished I had gotten on. Our group chased the front pack for a lap and a half, then we finally caught back on. The pace was not extremely hard for the first few laps. Hamburg is a very technical course with many sharp corners and the pack lengthened out into a long line and I ended up sitting in at the back. Normally that is a little too far back. But on that bike course, if you are not all the way up by a mile and half to go, you cannot make it back up. There is no room to pass. I remember [fellow USA competitor] Kevin Collington came back and asked me I how was feeling. I said “Don’t worry about me. I’m having fun and I’m feeling good.” I knew I had trained so well, so consistently, I had confidence I’d run fast regardless. The last lap of the bike, I probably worked one third of the way through the field and I came off the bike in what seemed like 40th place.

I set off running in the middle of the pack and by the end of the first lap I caught the leaders of the chase -- Brad Kahlefeldt, Jan Frodeno, Steffen Justus and Maik Petzold – and had only three of the breakaway riders in front of me. I knew the three started the run with about a 90-second lead, and in most races you can run them down. At the same time, it is what it is. There is not much you can do except run as hard as you can. The second lap I just kept going hard and caught Christian Prochnow and Paul Tichelaar right at 5km. When I caught up to those guys, I made a decision to keep going and not sit in run with the pack.

At that point I just continued to push. To some extent when you are out front, the tendency is to relax because you are out by yourself. So I knew not to hold back. Don’t go too hard, go smart, strong and smooth. Also, I kept getting information that I had a pretty good gap.

Once in the lead, I don’t usually look back. At the roundabouts I could see if I had increased the gap on the people I had passed or if they were coming closer. This was all stuff I learned from running races -- how to pace myself and how to know when you really need to put out the effort. I felt great, but I tried to keep the thought ‘Oh my I will win it’ out of my head. That can lead to disaster. A few hundred meters from the finish I looked once to make I sure kept strong all the way in. Finally, I flipped off my sunglasses for the finish.

Looking forward to London

Racing in London, it will be the first Olympic course preview and I am excited to race Brownlee [a perfect three wins in the World Championship series] and Gomez [two seconds and a third] there. The past two times I raced against Brownlee, we were not in the same pack and in Kitzbuhel I dropped out with hypothermia. I want to be in the game with him. That is what anybody would have to want – to push themselves against the men who have proved to be the best athletes right now.

My goal is to race well but I don’t think I can win every time. If anyone says they think they will win every triathlon in current ITU racing is crazy. The sport is so dynamic and so different from week to week, which is what’s fun about it. They will likely have a different winner every time because we have accidents, bad swims, bike breaks.

Comment on this article

sqwitter

saw something they can't teach today. Rode with Magali Tisseyre today. 4 days after Calgary 70.3 and she's hitting it with us on a 3hr VERY hilly ride. smiling ear to ear, hammering the climbs (Lance was that on her schedule?) and keeping up on the most technical road in Vic... on her TT bike. not sure if that says more about her skills or my lack of.... anyway, what an attitude. She served notice she's for real at Boise 70.3 my guess is there's more to come, much more. what an attitude.


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Oh and this is one of the many reasons why I often find myself consulting with Paulo.

http://thetriathlonbook.blogspot.com/2009/08/and-todays-rant-is-on-testing.html

Thursday, August 6, 2009

And today's rant is on testing

"When there is some sort of test that improves performance, I will do it. Most of those tests only serve to either be another service that you can charge athletes, or a way of justifying pseudo-scientific work and/or jobs. If I thought lactate tests were helpful, I would do them myself. I STOPPED doing lactate tests back in 2003. VO2max tests are interesting, but with little value to the training process. Not to mention that there is research that found no correlation between lactate test results and performance. What happens is that everyone is SO happy to do that kind of testing, they feel good about the pseudo-scientific side that adds to training. My personal favorite is doing tests at the beginning of the season, so when you repeat the tests a few weeks later, there is so much improvement, you feel so good about yourself! So it's not that I am old-school, or ignorant about these matters, it's just that when it comes to training I am only interested in performance".

lochside "track" today.

15min tempo then 6x800 on 4:15 and 4x200FAST.

We love running fast.

guest race report

Mike Long - dad, football coach and age group triathlete.

2009 St. Albert Triathlon race report.

Actually the race itself was almost secondary to the process leading up to it.

With my 40th birthday looming, my weight hitting new highs and my last training/race four years in the past, I was not liking the way things were going. So, after listening to your stories (over and over ha!) I decided I would put the popcorn down and get moving again. In late March I decided I would "get back into shape". Not very encouraging to start - fitness level zero+ weight 209+39.75 yrs old=SLOW (run/walking 5Ks, 25 min max bike rides). I started to see some improvement and was starting to lose weight. In May I started to think about entering a race and downloaded a Sprint Tri plan. I began going to the pool and upped the frequency of my training. I never trained for more than 5 hours a week but tried to work in 6 sessions (mostly lunch hours with longer sessions on the weekend). I signed up for the race in June and set goals I thought I could hit on each of the legs. By the time the race rolled around, I had lost 20 pounds and felt like I was ready to go. My targets were - swim under 15 mins, bike under 35, run under 25.

Going into the race held a lot of unknowns (in Victoria I knew most of the competitors and the various courses), I didn't know anyone in the race, didn't know the course and didn't know if I could put it all together.

The day started great - up early, ate, good weather - felt good. Warm up good, felt light on my feet, fast in the water and my bike looked fast.

The swim started and I settled into a comfortable pace - maybe too comfortable because I didn't get out of the pool and get that wobbly feeling when I stood up (14:33 for a time). On to the bike, it took a while to get my legs going and then there were hills and headwinds! Struggled for the first 7 k or so and then picked it up and was going good up to the turn-around. The way back seemed to go really well. It was fun to go fast on my new bike! But then those hills again - a long one at about 18K. I hit transition and thought I did alright. (just under 39mins). The run is usually a struggle for me just to hold on to the pace. I tried to keep a quick turnover. I actually passed a few people - which is rare. The temp was heating up by about the 3K mark and the last 2K were spent looking and hoping the finish line was around the next corner. Time - just under 24 mins. My total time was 1:17:28 - over my goal but I guess the hills had something to do with that. I finished 35th overall and 6th in my age group. Very happy overall, with the race and more so to be back, fit, running around and having fun.

Now it's on to coaching my son's football team and maybe dialing down the intensity while trying and build up more of a base/strength and maybe doing an Oly event next year!

I heard you say "just do it" once (or maybe I read that on your shirt?), well thanks for the push.

Mike

if you have a race report you'd like to share, a story about a race or training adventure. send it along. People are always concerned that "no one will read it" who cares? it's your race, your adventure, I'll read it, someone out there will be inspired and we'll be talking about our crazy sport/lifestyle.

KABUSH WINS!!!!!!

Geoff Kabush claims his maiden World Cup victory on home soil.

wow - he simply willed himself to win.

I wasn't a huge Phelp mania fan at the Olympics, seemed a bit too american for me.

Nothing against Phelps personally I just though the whole "greatest Olympian ever" thing was a bit much, who else gets to compete in a thousand different events?

but

After being called out at Worlds by Cavic and wearing an inferior suit (how stupid is this suit stuff) he smacks him in the mouth and beats him head to head.

What a picture!

"WHAT'S UP!!!"

Phelps 1st to break 50 seconds in event

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Associated Press

ROME -- Michael Phelps beat Milorad Cavic again. No doubt about it.

With a defiant performance in a supposedly inferior suit, Phelps stayed close over the outward lap and rallied on the return to become the first swimmer to break 50 seconds in the 100-meter butterfly, beating the Serbian with a time of 49.82.

Cavic also broke 50 seconds, but 49.95 was only good enough for silver. He wasn't nearly as close as last year's Beijing Olympics, when Phelps famously won by one-hundredth of a second and Cavic always maintained that he actually touched first.

When Phelps saw his time at the Foro Italico, he hopped up on the lane rope separating him and Cavic, threw up his arms and let out a scream toward his mom and sister in the stands.

[+] Enlarge

AP Photo/Michael SohnMichael Phelps reacts after setting a world record in the 100 meter butterfly final, beating rival Milorad Cavic to the wall.

Showing as much emotion as he ever has, Phelps also slapped the water and tugged at his Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit -- no doubt in reference to Cavic offering to get Phelps one of those supposedly faster polyurethane suits so he wouldn't have any excuses.

No need, Milorad.

Phelps did just fine with his own attire.

"It doesn't matter what suit you wear," Phelps said. "It matters how you train."

The two rivals finally shook hands, but that was about it.

Nothing more needed to be said.

"This is just a testament to Michael Phelps," Cavic said. "He can do it all."

Cavic did say one thing to Phelps: "You're the man."

"He just looked at me and smiled," Cavic said. "He knows it."

In one of the most memorable events of the Beijing Olympics, Phelps pulled out an improbable victory on his final half-stroke to beat Cavic by the narrowest possible margin. Without that win, Phelps would not have broken Mark Spitz's record with eight gold medals in a single games.

Cavic has stewed over the loss ever since, believing he touched first but didn't put as much pressure on the touchpad as Phelps, who ad-libbed a final half-stroke and crashed into the wall much harder. Even though all electronic and photographic evidence shows Phelps won, Cavic repeated his claims when he got to Rome.

He also tried to get into Phelps' head, saying it was the American's own fault for sticking with a Speedo suit that isn't as fast as polyurethane models such as the Arena X-Glide, which Cavic wears.

The Serbian offered to get Phelps an X-Glide "within the hour," or buy him another of the rubberized suits out of his own pocket. Cavic said he would really prefer to race Phelps wearing nothing but briefs, so everyone would know who the best man is without any help from the suits.

Phelps said he would do his talking in the pool.

"How can it not motivate you? When there are things that are said, the only thing it does for me is fire me up," he said. "It does nothing but literally motivate me to no end, and I love it."

Phelps set his second world record of the fastest meet in history and got back the mark Cavic snatched away a night earlier with a time of 51.01 in the semifinals.

Phelps also won his fourth gold medal of the championships, to go along with that silver he grudgingly accepted after losing to Germany's Paul Biedermann in the 200 free. Phelps has one event left -- the 400 medley relay Sunday night, assuming the U.S. doesn't mess up in the morning prelims. The Americans will be a heavy favorite in that one, as always.

Three other world records were set Saturday, bringing the total to 39 with one day left at the final meet for high-tech bodysuits.

Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe took down her down mark in the 200 backstroke, winning in 2 minutes, 4.81 seconds. Russia's Anastasia Zueva also went under Coventry's old mark of 2:05.24, but her 2:04.94 was only good enough for the silver. American Elizabeth Beisel claimed bronze.

China claimed the record in the women's 400-meter medley relay. Li Zhesi finished it off in 3:52.19 to beat the mark set by Australia (3:52.69) at the Beijing Olympics. The Aussies also went under the old mark, settling for silver in 3:52.58. Germany took the bronze.

The winning team also included Zhao Jing, Chen Huijia and Jiao Liuyang.

In a semifinal heat of a non-Olympic event, Britain's Liam Tancock set a world record of 24.08 in the 50 backstroke, eclipsing the mark of 24.33 held by American Randall Bal. Junya Koga of Japan also went under the previous record time to win the second heat at 24.29. The final is Sunday night.

Cesar Cielo of Brazil completed a sweep of the freestyle sprints with the 50-meter title. Cielo added to his title in the 100 with a one-lap time of 21.08 to hold off world-record holder Fred Bousquet (21.21) and fellow Frenchman Amaury Leveaux (21.25).

Managing to win world titles without world records: Australia's Marieke Guehrer in the women's 50 fly and Lotte Friis of Denmark in women's 800 freestyle. Olympic champion and 800 world-record holder Rebecca Adlington finished fourth.

After switching suits, going from Speedo to Jaked, 42-year-old American Dara Torres barely managed to qualify for the final of the 50 free. She was eighth fastest in the semifinals, claiming the final spot in Sunday's race but not giving herself much chance to duplicate her silver-medal showing at Beijing, where she lost to Germany's Britta Steffen by one-hundredth of a second.

Phelps' last individual event in Rome was a classic tortoise-versus-hare matchup, with Cavic knowing he would need a big lead at the turn, and Phelps fully aware he would have to be close enough to pull it out with his typically strong finish.

Cavic knew he was in trouble when Phelps was right on his shoulder as they kicked away from the far wall, just 0.77 separating them.

"I was pretty sure I was going to be ahead at the first turn," said Cavic, who wanted to be at least a second ahead. "When I saw him right there, uh oh."

Phelps appeared to be sneaking underwater glances in Cavic's direction all the way back, then finished in one last swoop of his arms. Bare-chested teammate Ryan Lochte, watching from the sunny side of the stands, kept screaming, "Come on!" Mom Debbie Phelps looked as though she could barely breathe as she watched the finish.

"I felt so good coming off the wall," Phelps said. "My kick off the wall felt really, really good. I saw the splash out of my left eye from his lane coming over, and I saw him getting closer and closer, and I heard the crowd getting louder and louder. I figured it was going to come down to the touch again."

Not really. Unlike Beijing, where Phelps trailed to the last possible split-second and ad-libbed a desperate half-stroke to beat a gliding Cavic, the American was clearly ahead.

He didn't even hear what Cavic had to say when it was over. The Serbian hung on the lane rope, as if wanting to make peace, but Phelps was too busy celebrating.

"That satisfied me a little bit," Phelps quipped with that crooked grin of his. "I set it up perfectly."

No doubt about it.

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press