The Nationals Enquirer August 11, 2008

NATIONALS ENQUIRER “Enquiring Swimmers Want to Know”

AUGUST 11, 2008

~LET THE GAMES BEGIN~

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Inside This Issue Meet Announcements----------3 Editorial Erudition-------------4 Readers’ Retort-----------------8 Coaches Corner----------------11 Volunteers’ Venue-------------14 Participant Profiles------------16 Oregon Trail- Mt. Hood Jazz Festival, MHCC------17 Logistics – Maps & More----18 Social Set-----------------------21 Swim Fans’ Forum-----------22 Evolution of the Swim Costume-------------------25

What coaching advice should we have listened to months ago? What's the latest poolside gossip? What's the inside scoop behind Enquiring yesterday’s record swims? swimmers want to know. The infamous Nationals Enquirer has dispatched its intrepid reporter to churn out copy for these hard-to-putdown, photo-filled pages. Old news, rehashed, performance enhancement breakthroughs explained, the unavoidable serious article about competing in our sport, and real-life humaninterest stories are all here. Look for updates , every day of the meet, and then some. Don't miss a single lurid issue! Pre-meet issues available exclusively on-line; limited numbers of abbreviated meet issues available in print at the Aquatic Center

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Important! Notices & Corrections Heads up, Swimmers: • Check In: Our early morning start to competition makes deck-seeding logistics challenging. The meet administrators ask that entrants in the first events of the day CHECK IN AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE. Remember, online check-in opens Tuesday, August 112 at noon PDT, so don’t wait until the last minute to check in! • Green Alert: The meet organizers will be supplying water bottles to all participants at Registration, along with tape to affix your name. Please use the bottles throughout the meet (in lieu of throw-away plastic bottles) and reduce the USMS environmental footprint! • Socials: Tickets for both the Friday and Saturday night socials are SOLD OUT. If you do not have a ticket and wish to attend, check at Registration to see if any tickets have been turned in for resale. Check-in at each Social is required before entering; see further information inside. • Last Edition: This is the last expanded edition of the Nationals Enquirer. News and energy permitting, your editors will be publishing and printing brief daily bulletins during the meet, and posting pictures on the host website: www.lcnationals2008.net/

Gold Medal Sponsors will find something special in their Goodie Bags at registration. MacCallum Family Cellars has supplied their 2003 Estate Malbec under a special label prepared exclusively for the 2008 USMS LC Nationals. Rated “90” by Wine Enthusiast, this “dark and tannic Malbec” is described as showing “the intense boysenberry character of the Northwest.” Jim MacCallum describes the wine as “ready to drink now.” Unless you can persuade a Gold Medal Sponsor to share, you can only find MacCallum wines on-line (This family vintner produces only about 1,200 cases of certified organic wines per year). Find out more at: www.maccallumwines.com.

WARNING: This publication (if you want to call it that) is not the official, or any, communication of USMS, OMS, Mt. Hood Community College, or any other responsible organization, nor is it a communication attributable to the Meet Directors, who are men of few words (but mighty deeds in most situations). This publication is intended solely as entertainment by athletes, for athletes. The opinions expressed by the editors and contributors are entirely their own, God help them.

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EDITORIAL ERUDITION Swimming and the Athletic Ideal We witnessed some amazing spectacles in the competition pool when we attended the U.S. Swimming Olympic Trials in Omaha. We also witnessed a few spectacles in other areas. The Trials are a meat market for coaches, athletes and sponsors. We sat next to legends from past Olympics and rubbed shoulders with minor royalty in the sport. We also were exposed to some of the grimy details of the sport that surprised us. Not the least of these was a friendly argument between two very well known coaches, one of whom claimed that swimming in the U.S. was clean of any taint of doping, and the other of whom claimed that it was far from clean, and had been dirty for years. Maybe in delinquent recognition that their conversation was occurring in public, the coaches agreed that they probably needed to have a private heart-to-heart about the subject someday. We were shocked to overhear this exchange. Is it possible that USA Swimming is not running a completely clean operation? likely, is it possible that USA Swimming doesn’t really know one way or the other?

More

A recent thought-provoking article asks whether all the focus on the Speedo LZR Racer, the Tyr Tracer and the BlueSeventy isn’t just a smoke screen: “If you are old enough and have been around the Olympic swimming community long enough, the swimsuit swooning sounds familiar. Once before, in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, when world records evaporated and 11 of a possible 13 gold medals were gobbled up by the East German women’s swimming team, the athletes from that country pointed to their suits. “It was the Lycra, they said. “Faster. Racier. Cutting edge. “And it was also one of the biggest red herrings in the history of the Olympic Games – the 1970s version of the juiced baseball and nothing more than a technological justification to cover up the systematic East German doping.” Charles Robinson, Yahoo! Sports, August 5, 2008, http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news;_ylt=Ao8pW6iqK07nKx566DuYywyVTZd4?slu g=cr-dopingsidebar080508&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

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Swimming and the Athletic Ideal, continued: USA Swimming certainly seemed to have its head in the sand about doping: the testing results for Olympic team members were produced so late that when Jessica Hardy’s positive result became known, it was too late to replace her on the team. As a consequence, two women missed their chance at achieving an Olympic berth (Tara Kirk in the 100 breaststroke and Lara Jackson in the 50 free), and two 4th place finishers (each already members of the team in different events) step into Hardy’s shoes. The result is wholly unsatisfactory: clean athletes are penalized and the team itself is weakened. Certainly, with only a little vigilance, and given the known deadlines, the results of doping tests conducted at Trials could have been available in time to avoid this outcome. But this outcome, while bad, certainly isn’t the worst scenario that we can envision. What if one or more doping athletes get through the screening, are placed on the team and are later caught? The fresh apple-pie, all-American, face of USA Swimming will have been smeared, perhaps indelibly. The last few days have seen a proliferation of articles raising the specter of doping in swimming, either directly or indirectly. Most of these have been written by experts in other sports, who don’t have the Pollyanna attitude of the coach we overheard who thought that “it couldn’t happen to us.” So, are the 42 world records broken since February, including at the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials, attributable to better training, to the “Suits,” or to something more sinister? Disasters occur when you’re caught napping or, worse, when you’re in self denial about the power and allure of the enemy. Swimming in the U.S. is ripe for a doping scandal. There is a dark underbelly to the glamour and glitz we saw at the Qwest Center. Daily prime-time coverage, fireworks on deck for record-setting swims, medal processions led by elegant “podium girls” and accompanied by a custom-written music score, an ondeck Master of Ceremonies and the liquid messaging waterfall – these are the trappings of a professional sport. Elite swimmers are no longer “amateurs” who attend college on athletic scholarship, earn their degrees and then move on into the workforce. They turn pro, use their earnings to attend college (or skip college completely), and keep swimming through their twenties and into their thirties, supporting themselves on endorsements, prize winnings and appearance fees.

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Swimming and the Athletic Ideal, continued: When your livelihood is dependent on athletic success, and when your athletic success depends on staying ahead of a relentlessly chasing competitive field, the temptation is high to “try anything” that will enhance your performance. And the means available for enhancement are almost unlimited. The spectrum starts with the widely accepted and legal, continues through the legal but controversial, and ends in the shadows of the illegal, undetectable and, at least publicly, reviled. Caffeine, ibuprofen and other painkillers and antiinflammatories, asthma inhalers, creatine, high-altitude training, hypoxic altitude tents, sports supplements (fat loss products, protein powders, cellular energizers, and mood enhancers, among others), steroids, EPO, human growth hormone, blood doping and gene doping all lie along this spectrum. If you believe the worst, Jessica Hardy ventured into the far end of this spectrum and intentionally ingested a substance that she thought would give her a performance boost. At best, she stayed in the mid-range of the spectrum, ingesting a dietary supplement that she thought was legal and would give her a performance boost (but was tainted). Either way, she appears to have been sucked into the vortex of the performance enhancement spectrum – can we really believe that hers is an isolated case? A doping scandal tars not only the culprits; it casts suspicion on every participant in a sport, no matter how upstanding. Witness professional cycling, where every extraordinary performer seems to be followed by a baying pack of journalists trying to undermine his accomplishments. Now, at this crossroads for the sport, USA Swimming can’t afford to have its head in the sand on the issue of doping. Is USA Swimming doing everything it can be doing to assure that its National Team athletes are clean? Do Masters Swimmers, as participants, fans and advocates of the sport, have a responsibility to swim clean and to insist publicly that our elite national swimmers embody the athletic ideal underlying the ancient Greek games, “a healthy mind in a healthy body?” Does Masters Swimming’s focus on age-group world records and age-group world-leading times obscure a more compelling goal for non-professional adult athletic competition, i.e., lifelong health and fitness, and fair play? Should Masters Swimmers be doing more to promote swimming and athletics as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself, with the end being that athletes become principled contributors to society?

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Swimming and the Athletic Ideal, continued: More Reading on the Doping Issue: Believe it or not: Clean Team USA?, by Josh Peter and Charles Robinson, Yahoo! Sports, August 5, 2008 http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news;_ylt=Ai_n99sz1muPJ5VRb9_wORWVTZd4 ?slug=ys-olympicdoping080508&prov=yhoo&type=lgns They're Not Pros, but They Cheat Like Them, Amateurs Increasingly Turn to Drugs for an Extra Edge, by Laura S. Jones, Special to The Washington Post, August 5, 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080102590.html Changing U.S.’s gold standard for the better, by Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports, August 5, 2008 http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=dwdoping080508&prov=yhoo&type=lgns Swimming fits the doping scandal profile, by Charles Robinson, Yahoo! Sports, August 5, 2008 http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news;_ylt=Ao8pW6iqK07nKx566DuYywyVTZd4 ?slug=cr-dopingsidebar080508&prov=yhoo&type=lgns USA Swimming’s statement on Jessica Hardy withdrawal and selection of replacement athletes, followed by reader comments: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/18710.asp?q=Open%20Letter %20to%20Swimming%20Community%20from%20USA%20Swimming

FRANK AND ROBIN PARISI, EDITORS, PUBLISHERS AND ROVING REPORTERS FOR THE NATIONALS ENQUIRER, LIVE AND SWIM (BUT HAVING RECENTLY RETIRED, DO NOT WORK) IN PORTLAND, OREGON, AND KONA, HAWAII. WE INVITE MASTERS SWIMMERS VISITING KONA WHILE WE ARE IN RESIDENCE THERE TO CONTACT US FOR A PERSONAL ESCORT ON THE IRONMAN WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS’ SWIMMING COURSE, STARTING AT THE PUBLIC PIER IN DOWNTOWN KONA. IN ADDITION TO BEING PERHAPS THE BEST OPEN WATER SWIMMING VENUE FOR HUMANS ANYWHERE, IT IS SOMETIMES FREQUENTED BY SPINNER DOLPHINS, MANTA RAYS, AND OTHER FRIENDLY AQUATIC CREATURES WHO HAVE A THING OR TWO TO TEACH HUMANS WHEN IT COMES TO SWIMMING.

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READERS’ RETORT Dear Editors: The following might interest readers of the Nationals Enquirer. It is excerpts from A Psychoanalytic Analysis of Swimming, published several years ago in a specialized German psychoanalytic journal. The entire article is more than 800 pages long, and it is believed that no single person has yet finished reading it. Fortunately, some of the most thought-provoking sections have been translated into English, although as of yet they have never appeared in any publication readily available to the general public. I first learned of the existence of the work from a fellow masters swimmer, who saw the excerpts while thumbing through psychiatric publications while attending a group therapy session for distance butterflyers. My understanding is that Professor Schinkel, the author, was an avid swimmer himself, and regularly swam with several fellow psychoanalysts at lunch. They often competed together in one-hour swim events, unfortunately never reaching their potential due to the fact that their professional training led them to end the sessions after fifty minutes. At one event they attended at a pool in Berlin with a particularly slippery tile deck, Professor Schinkel remarked that he “had never seen so many Freudians slip”. Sincerely, Mike Dowd

Excerpts from

A Psychoanalytic Analysis of Swimming (Summarization and translation by Pr. Roland Schinkel, F.I.N.A.. Emeritus, from an article by Pr. Klaus Zehetbauer, D.ps.A. in Sammlung (Journal of Psychoanalytic Science, V. XII, N. 4 Prologue …Swimming perhaps stands alone in the realm of human activities due to the degree to which it exemplifies the physical manifestation of psychological regression. Through the aqua-physical act of swimming, the species attempts to satisfy primal, sub-cognitive urges to relive its pre-sentient past as aquatic hydrophilic beings, through a simultaneous literal and figurative immersion into the aqueous environment of its primordial, proto-humanoid predecessors, regressive both in the manner and degree to which latent but ultimately unrealizable yearnings for the anti-terrestrial, maternal womb are pursued…

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A Psychoanalytic Analysis of Swimming, excerpts continued: …Swimming exhibits a paradoxical dichotomy. As the aquatic ape-predecessor of modern sentient man--emerged from the primordial swamp, his hydrophilic neurological wiring evolved to a state of hydro-neutrality, then hydrophobia. As noted by Andropov, water became ultimately a medium not of all-encompassing hydromateriality, experienced through neo-cortical awareness, but rather a physical, operative manifestation of the life/death duality, experienced through the conscious act of swimming only in conjunction with the concomitant life/death--or swim/drown--duality. Hydroambiguous stroke Nowhere is the paradoxical nature of the act of swimming more clearly manifested than in the stroke of breaststroke. From a psychoanalytic viewpoint, the breaststroke is compelling not only from the teleological sense as an external manifestation of sub-conscious impulses (does not the antecedent of neuro-motor reflexivity induce parallel tautologies?) but equally as a physical act so revealing of the delicate balances separating the realms of life and death, or existence and non-existence… …If (breaststroke) exposes the paradoxes of swimming, in no stroke more than the hydro-ambiguous breaststroke are swimming’s psychoanalytical impulses more clearly expressed. In layman’s terms, the breaststroker, unlike practitioners of the other, more straightforward and logical strokes, seemingly cannot decide (or on a subconscious, supra-ego level, does not understand) if he should be in or out of the water. And nowhere within the stroke are these issues more clearly exposed than in the progression from the insweep and upsweep, through the “lunge” which defines the modern breaststroke. It is not unreasonable to posit that, in the course of one stroke cycle, the breaststroker reenacts and relives the entire evolution and existence of the human species.

Continued . . .

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A Psychoanalytic Analysis of Swimming, excerpts continued: …As the insweep--the inward adductive portion of the breaststroker’s arm stroke--progresses into the arms-forward upsweep, the body rises, leaving the aqueous environment in a hydrophobic quest for the terrestrial. As the torso emerges from the water, the spinal column reshapes itself from the concave to the convex, in anticipation of the lunge, which will propel the swimmer forward over and back into the water. The swimmer at this stage reaches a point of hydro-ecstatica, an addictive state in which the body enters a nirvana-like yet simultaneously angst-laden universe of ultimate weightlessness and ultimate ambiguity, a suspension of materiality between the dueling realms of land and water, and between the opposing states of life and death (the aquatic signifying life for the hydrophilic component of the consciousness, the terrestrial playing a concomitant role for its hydrophobic counterpart). Almost immediately, however, is initiated a hydrophilic lunge into the realm of the aquatic, an unambiguous progression forward in the sense of the physical or corporeal realm, yet in synchronicity an equally unambiguous regression backwards from a psychological standpoint. The re-submergence of the body brings a corresponding return from the supra-cortical chaos of the anti-aquatic into the limbic remembrance of the collective unconsciousness, a resolution complete yet ultimately evanescent, as the next stroke cycle brings the swimmer towards an Atlas-like repetition of dualities….

# Ed. Note: Mr. Dowd is known to the editors as a member of Oregon Masters Swimming, but is otherwise shrouded in mystery. Since he accepted the OMS “Big Splash” award several years ago (for the most competition swims of any OMS member), sightings of Mr. Dowd have been rare. Any inquiries concerning this article should go directly to Mr. Dowd: he can be contacted standing behind Lane 8, just prior to heat 10 of event 22, the Men’s 100 M Breaststroke (he may appear muddled).

Attention!

There will be an on-site therapy session for distance butterflyers during the afternoon portion of the meet, Thursday August 14, 2008, when Meet Director Dennis Baker is expected to demonstrate the perils of butterfly obsession by swimming the entire 1500 M Freestyle event using the butterfly stroke. Among other issues, the session will focus on rationales used by sufferers of the syndrome to justify their actions, e.g., “it is easier to see the numbers that the counter is holding at the end of the pool,” “I just seem to lose my aerobic conditioning when I taper too much,” and “those shorter distances don’t really put the BlueSeventy to the test.” No preregistration required; meet mid-pool in the spectator stands.

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COACHES’ CORNER Dry Off and Swim Faster! By Mo Chambers

Dryland training for swimmers is not new news. I remember the early morning routine of push-ups, sit-ups, and surgical tubing sets with my AAU-club teammates. We followed the circuit with a brief stretching routine and then it was onto the main thrust of our training – swim, swim, and swim some more. Fast forward to 2008 and dryland training for swimmers is a front-page item. In fact, the term “dryland” has expanded to much more than I remember as an age grouper. Today, the most successful out-of-thepool training programs are designed with three essential components – strength training, stretching, and massage. When all three of these elements are effectively integrated, the result is improved core stability, increased flexibility, and more strength and power. In swimming, this translates to longer, stronger, more balanced strokes and explosive streamlines and dives. Combine this with a higher resistance to injury and it is easy to see why swimmers of every level are making all three aspects of dryland training a priority.

Stretching Although there are many different types of stretches, two very simple forms of stretching that fit easily into a swimmer’s program are dynamic and static. Dynamic stretches, such as arm circles and walking lunges, are best performed before a workout. Make the movements long, slow, and within your range of motion. The goal of dynamic stretches is to relieve tightness while increasing pliability in the muscles. Reserve time at the completion of your workout for static stretches, wherein you stretch the muscle to its maximum range of motion and hold for 10 – 20 seconds. Repeat each static stretch 2 – 3 times and relax and breathe comfortably. The goal of static stretches is to improve range of motion.

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Dry Off and Swim Faster, Continued: Dara Torres, an advocate of resistance stretching, refers to her two personal stretchers as her “secret weapons.” With their onehour of rigorous post-workout stretching, Dara reports a quicker recovery from training efforts and increased flexibility. Resistance stretching, in which the muscle is simultaneously elongated and contracted, is an element of the Meridian Flexibility System, founded by Bob Cooley. Training programs are available to learn how to self-stretch and partner-stretch with this technique. Strengthening Trainers and coaches agree that swimmers achieve the best results from a strengthening program by training all the swimming-specific muscles, as well as stabilizing the reciprocal muscles for a full-body routine. One of the primary areas of focus for swimmers, and all athletes for that matter, in is the midsection, or core, of the body. By working with bands and free weights, athletes are able to engage their body’s stabilizing muscles as they work through the full range of motion on each exercise. Furthermore the free-weight option allows for much more variety in your workouts, allowing you to target your workouts to improving endurance, strength, or power. There are many options for swimmers with limited time or who are not inclined to step into the weight room at the gym. A basic strength-training program can be accomplished almost anywhere, including your home, a hotel room while traveling, or on a pool deck with friends. By using bands, balls, your own body weight, and a little creativity, you can exercise all the major muscle groups without ever going to a gym.

Massage The third and often overlooked component of dryland training is massage. Many swimmers are unaware of the big paybacks that massage can bring to the success of both their stretching and strengthening programs and ultimately their swimming. A traditional Swedish massage will leave muscles relaxed and ready for effective stretching. Alternatively, a deep tissue massage is effective in breaking up “knots” in the muscles and flushing toxins and lactic acid that result from training. Although more painful, the deep tissue option will noticeably loosen up muscles, allowing for quicker recovery and increased flexibility. At a minimum, every swimmer should have a foam roller to roll out their tired muscles, increase blood flow, and improve recovery.

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Dry Off and Swim Faster, Continued: Think “Outside the Pool” The scene on the pool deck is dramatically different from my experience as an age grouper. Medicine balls, Swiss balls, foam rollers, stretch cords, and free weights now sprinkle the picture and combine for a unique variety of exercises designed to develop better balanced, stronger, and more powerful swimmers. As you assess your performance at this meet and reflect on how to make changes in your training program, I encourage you to think “outside of the pool.” Make strength training, stretching, and massage a priority and bring your performance in the water to a new level.

Mo Chambers has been coaching Masters swimming in northern and central California for the past 20 years and is relocating with her husband and two sons to the Pacific Northwest this fall. She was named Pacific Coach of the Year in 1995 and USMS Coach of the Year in 1996. USMS also awarded Mo the 2006 Dorothy Donnelly Service Award in recognition of her service to Masters Swimming. Recently Mo co-authored, with Jim Montgomery, Mastering Swimming, which will be available in October in 2008.

Start Your Massage Therapy at Nationals! Massage therapy will be available to participants throughout the meet. The massage station will be located in the tented area of the soccer fields, adjacent to the pool (see maps under “Logistics”). A variety of services will be available from more than a half dozen massage therapists under the coordination of Dr. Seth Alley, DC, and Michelle Ogden, LMT. Dr. Alley practices at Sylvan Chiropractic Clinic, LLC, Portland (BA, Davidson College, N.C.; DC, Western States Chiropractic College, Portland, OR). Dr. Alley practices in all areas of chiropractic, (e.g., sports injuries, auto collision injuries, physical therapy and rehabilitation, nutritional counseling, food allergy/sensitivity testing, and cholesterol screening) but is especially interested in sports medicine and women's health. Ms. Ogden is a licensed Oregon massage therapist. She owns Ambrosia Massage in Beaverton (503-330-4020). She specializes in deep tissue and sports massage.

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VOLUNTEERS’ VENUE NONE OF THIS WOULD BE POSSIBLE WITHOUT . . .

THE MEET REFEREE! It’s in the Rules ~~ The USMS Rule Book specifies that the minimum personnel at a USMSsanctioned meet must include “one referee.” In the case of the USMS 2008 LC National Championships, the meet referee is . . .

JACKI ALLENDER Jacki looks like a carefree lady in this picture, but don’t be fooled. The meet referee is responsible for just about everything that occurs at the meet; specifically, she has “full authority over all officials and shall assign and instruct them; shall enforce all applicable rules and shall decide all questions relating to the actual conduct of the meet, the final settlement of which is not otherwise assigned by said rules; [and] can overrule any meet official on a point of rule interpretation or on a judgment decision pertaining to an action that the referee has personally observed.” In other words, the buck stops with Jacki! Don’t worry though. You are in good and experienced hands. Jacki is probably Oregon’s most august swimming official. She works selflessly (and tirelessly) throughout the year, every year, at both USA Swimming and USMS-sanctioned meets. She serves as OMS’s Chair of Officials, is the mother of a former USA Swimmer, and the wife of current USMS swimmer Pat Allender. This summer alone Jacki has officiated, often filling the role of referee or administrative referee, at various local agegroup meets, the Speedo Western Long Course Championships, the USA Swimming 2008 Western Zone Championships, and the U.S. Open. In fact, she’s been working a meet almost continuously for the entire summer!

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VOLUNTEERS VENUE, THE MEET REFEREE, Continued: Even someone as experienced as Jacki, though, is not impervious to nerves. Ask her how she felt when she took to the deck as one of the “chosen few” who served as officials at the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials in Omaha. Jacki recently described her experience in the OMS monthly newsletter, saying “It was such an honor and a thrill for me to be there. It is so difficult to put into words how I felt. I had to keep pinching myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I really was only inches away from many of the swimmers that made the 2008 Olympic Team and many that will represent the US in future Olympic games. It was the stuff that dreams are made of.”

Jacki with her Game Face on at Olympic Trials

Jacki has assembled this group of dedicated officials who, along with Jacki, are prepared to put in long hours to make this Masters Nationals meet a reality: Administrative Referee: Herb Schawb Assistant Administrative Referee: Gene Mielke USMS Officials Liaison: Jan Kavadas Deck Officials: Pat Allender Mike Andrews Terri Tyynismaa Al Smith Tina Strahan Pam Snider Jim White Marie Widestrom

Richard Robinson Henry Leung Stan Benson Ken Breiding Lee Carlson Amy Emmett Kevin Fraley Ted Haartz Joanne Wisniwski

John Wukstich Edward Saltzman Bob McMillan Fred Piggott Leon Politano Linda Postma Helen Raittinen Mark Rieniets

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PARTICIPANT PROFILES At left, the Water Cube, Beijing

The Water Cube in Beijing will not be the only venue hosting Olympic swimmers during the next week. Six Olympians are poised to part the waters of the Mt. Hood Aquatic Center pool. The line-up is below.

Graham Johnston, S. Africa 1952 Helsinki, Men’s 400 M & 1500 M Freestyle, seventh Men’s 4X200 M Freestyle Relay Now residing in the Houston area.

Manny Sanguily, Cuba 1952 Helsinki, Men’s 200 M Breaststroke 1956 Melbourne, finalist men’s 200 M Breaststroke Now residing in Scarborough, NY.

Melbourne

Munich

Yoshi Oyakawa, USA 1952 Helsinki, Gold Medal Men’s 100 M Backstroke; 1956 Melbourne, finalist Men’s 100 M Backstroke Now residing in the Cincinnati area.

Montreal

David Radcliff, USA 1956 Melbourne, 1500 M Freestyle Now residing in the Portland area. Atlanta

Rick Colella, USA 1972 Munich, finalist Men’s 200 M Breaststroke 1976 Montreal, Bronze Medal, Men’s 200 M Breaststroke Now residing in the Seattle area.

Sydney

Claudia Poll, Costa Rica 1996 Atlanta, Gold Medal Women’s 200 M Freestyle, finalist Women’s 400 M Freestyle 2000 Sydney, Bronze Medal Women’s 200 M Freestyle, Bronze Medal Women’s 400 M Freestyle 2004 Athens, Women’s 200 M and 400 M Freestyle Now residing in Alajuela, Costa Rica.

Athens

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THE OREGON TRAIL ENTERTAINMENT CLOSE TO HOME:

THE MOUNT HOOD JAZZ FESTIVAL Mt. Hood Community College, our host for Nationals, will also be hosting a great Oregon tradition August 15 through 17, the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival. Annually for more than 25 years, the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival has brought superior international, national and local jazz musicians to Gresham in August. The main stage outdoor performances are augmented by smaller jazz venues and other artistic and cultural events. The Festival features both ticketed and free events, and should afford Nationals participants a nice break from swimming! Following is a list of scheduled activities, many of which are free; find out more, buy tickets and see a MHCC map at the Festival website, http://www.mthoodjazz.org/index.php.

Friday August 15: All performances on Friday are ticketed events and take place at the Mt. Hood Community College Theater, all seats are reserved: 8:00 PM - Benny Green Trio followed by Diane Schuur

Saturday August 16: Ticketed Performances at the College Theatre, all seats are reserved; food and drink available on site before the show at the Courtyard right outside the College Theater: 8:00 PM - Mt. Hood Community College Alumni Band followed by Joey DeFrancesco Free Performances at the Courtyard Stage (just outside the theatre): 10:30 AM to 7:30 PM: various musicians; see website for details Free Activities, Visual Arts Village 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM: MHCC Art Show at Visual Arts Gallery 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM and 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM: Documentary “Perceptions Short Flicks” (Visual Arts Theater): 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM and 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM: “A Taste of Pottery” (Ceramics Studio) Seating limited to 10 adults (17 and over) 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM: Jazz Readings by Lynn Darroch (Visual Arts Theater) Activities Around Campus All day: Nature Walk (approximately ½ mile. Start at College Center) 11:40 AM to 12:00 PM, 12:40 PM to 1:00 PM, 2:10 PM to 2:30 PM, and 3:25 PM to 3:45 PM: Planetarium Show (Planetarium Shows last approximately 20 minutes. There is NO seating after the show starts): 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM : Wine Tasting (Visual Arts Gallery) (21 and over, ID and a small fee is required):

Sunday August 17 Free Performances at the Courtyard Stage (just outside the theatre): 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM: various musicians; see website for details Free Activities, Visual Arts Village All day: artist booths, great Northwest food, a beer and wine garden and more!

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LOGISTICS DRIVING DIRECTIONS from Portland International Airport (PDX) to the Aquatic Center: Start at: Portland Int'l Airport 1. Head northwest on NE Airport Way - 30 ft 2. Slight left toward NE Airport Way (signs for Long-Term Parking) - 0.3 mi 3. Turn left toward NE Airport Way - 0.1 mi 4. Slight left at NE Airport Way - 1.9 mi 5. Merge onto I-205 S/Veterans Memorial Hwy via the ramp to Salem/Portland/I-84 - 1.9 mi 6. Take exit 22 to merge onto I-84 E/US-30 E toward The Dalles - 8.0 mi 7. Take exit 17 toward Troutdale/Marine Dr. - 0.2 mi 8. Merge onto NW Frontage Rd - 0.5 mi 9. Turn right at NW Graham Rd - 0.3 mi 10. Continue on SW 257th Ave/SW 257th Dr Continue to follow SW 257th Ave - 1.7 mi 11. Continue on NE Kane Rd - 0.7 mi (look for Aquatic Center signs) Arrive at: NE Kane Rd & NE 17th Dr Gresham, OR 97030 (follow signs to Aquatic Center)

You can find a map of the above route here (cut and paste this address into your browser): http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Portland+Int'l+A irport&daddr=45.543389,122.409668+to:NE+Kane+Rd+%26+NE+17th+Dr,+Gresha m,+OR+97030&hl=en&geocode=&mra=dpe&mrcr=0&mr sp=1&sz=12&via=1&sll=45.54834,122.494615&sspn=0.11709,0.282555&ie=UTF8&z=12

Gresham 10-Day Forecast (as of Aug.9): High / Low (°F)

Precip. %

Today Aug 09

Showers

68°/54°

40 %

Sun Aug 10

Showers

72°/54°

40 %

Mon Aug 11

Partly Cloudy

81°/54°

20 %

Tue Aug 12

Mostly Sunny

80°/57°

0%

Wed Aug 13

Mostly Cloudy

79°/58°

10 %

Thu Aug 14

Sunny

87°/59°

10 %

Fri Aug 15

Sunny

87°/62°

0%

Sat Aug 16

Sunny

88°/59°

0%

Sun Aug 17

Sunny

83°/57°

10 %

Mon Aug 18

Showers

79°/56°

40 %

Last Updated Aug 9 07:04 a.m. PT

To see a current update of this forecast, go here: http://www.weather.com/outlook/health/airquality/tend ay/USOR0148?from=36hr_fcst10DayLink_aq

Links to Useful Gresham Information: Gresham Restaurants: http://www.pdxstump.com/directory/gresham/restaurant?tagMin=14 The Gresham Outlook (local paper): http://www.theoutlookonline.com/news/index.php Guide to farm produce/farmers markets: http://www.tricountyfarm.org/ MAX and public bus schedules: http://www.trimet.org/ Gresham walking trails (with map link): http://www.ci.gresham.or.us/departments/des/parksandrec/trails/ Other Gresham links: http://www.el.com/to/gresham/

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LOGISTICS, CONTINUED:

Gresham Location of Mt. Hood Community College

Map of Mt. Hood Community College Campus:

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LOGISTICS, CONTINUED: The MHCC Athletic Facilities (you will find a more specific schematic of the Aquatic Center in your meet program, available at Registration):

Downtown Gresham, with parking:

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LOGISTICS, CONTINUED: Meet Shuttle Schedule (check page 15 in the Meet Program, in your registration packet at check-in, for complete details)

Route (repeating loop; estimated time, one loop per hour): Best Western Holiday Inn Days Inn Aquatic Center Wednesday - 1st shuttle will leave Best Western at 12:00 noon. The last shuttle of the day will leave the pool at about 7:45 PM.

Thursday - 1st shuttle will leave Best Western at 6:00 AM. The last shuttle of the day will leave the pool at about 9:45 PM.

Friday-Sunday - same as Thursday, except that, from 6-9 AM, three shuttles will be used! One shuttle will be dedicated to making round trips from each hotel for the first three hours. *Look for the Yellow School Bus

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AUGUST 11, 2008

THE SOCIAL SET Sad news for you procrastinators out there – both event Socials are SOLD OUT. If you don’t have a ticket and are interested in attending, inquire at Registration whether any tickets have become available. Check-in is required to gain admission to both socials; a check-in table will be set up outside each event. And remember, if you would like to attend the on-site barbecue Saturday evening but do not have a ticket, you may bring your own picnic and join the fun. Friday August 15

Saturday August 16

Buffet style dinner at McMenamins Edgefield Manor. Arrive early and tour this 38-acre property while enjoying Oregon wines and McMenamins own handcrafted ales. The Manor is a national historic landmark that includes lush gardens, a par-3 golf course and craftsmen studios. The food is prepared with seasonal ingredients from Edgefield’s’ own organically grown gardens and the finest local, organic, and sustainable ingredients whenever possible.

Family style barbeque at the Aquatic Center prepared onsite by the national award winning caterer Bistro Catering (bistrocatering.com). Nohost bar by Summerland Catering Services (summerlandcateringservices.com, featuring Lucky Labrador beers and Oregon wine. Live music performed by the local band ONE WAY TRAIN, whose influences include The Eagles, Kenny Rogers, AC/DC, Garth Brooks and many more.

Where: Edgefield Blackberry Hall and the adjacent Meadow. When: 6:00 Check-in outside of Blackberry Hall begins 6:00 Bars Open (2 cash bars – one inside and one outside) 6:15 Food services starts (inside and outside) 9:30 Outside food and bar service ends (in the Meadow) 10:00 Social ends 10:30 Last shuttle leaves Edgefield

Where: In the soccer field adjacent to the Aquatic Center When: 6:00 Check-in at the soccer fields begins 6:00 Summerland Catering Cash Bar begins 6:00 Food service begins 7:30 The band ONE WAY TRAIN begins 9:30 Food Service Ends 10:00 Social Ends 10:45 Last shuttle leaves the pool Directions: None needed! Follow the Aroma.

Directions: Turn right on 17th drive (out of Aquatic Center parking lot); take next right onto 257th / Kane Drive and continue approximately 2.4 miles; turn left onto W. Historic Columbia River Hwy., which turns into SW Halsey Street; in approximately .5 miles watch for a small Edgefield sign on the left at 2126 SW Halsey Street.

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AUGUST 11, 2008

SWIM FANS’ FORUM ONE SECRET OF OLYMPIANS’ SUCCESS By guest columnist Gustopher Googleman (“Gus”) Parisi

Many experts today agree that a best friend affords many stressrelieving and health benefits. While human friends provide some social support, this article focuses on the benefits of man’s real best friend, the dog. Among our many virtues, modern research shows that people are less likely to suffer from depression if they own a dog, that owning a dog is more effective in reducing blood pressure than taking drugs is, and dogs can reduce their human’s stress level. Always at the forefront of scientific research, many swimmers on our Olympic team turn to dogs for the emotional support they need in their medal hunt. Can you match the swimmer to his or her dog(s)? Answer

Answer

Megan Jendrick

Peter Vanderkaay

Scott Spann

Kathleen Hersey

Lacey Nymeyer

Ryan Lochte

Michael Phelps

Kim Vandenberg

A B C D E

English Bulldog Two Rottweilers, a mixed Chow Black lab Two yellow labs and a hermit crab (dog friendly) Border Terrier and Boxer

Brendan Hansen

Natalie Coughlin

F G H I

German Short-haired Pointer Jack Russell/Lab mix and Mini-Pinscher Rhodesian Ridgeback and Mastiff/Retriever mix Rottweiler

J

White Lab and Toy Poodle

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ONE SECRET OF OLYMPIANS’ SUCCESS, Continued AND THE ANSWERS ARE: Michael Phelps (A)

Kathleen Hersey (F)

Ryan Lochte (B)

Megan Jendrick (G)

Brendan Hansen (C)

Nymeyer (H)

Peter Vanderkaay (D)

Kim Vandenberg (I)

Natalie Coughlin (E)

Scott Spann (J)

Lacey

Gus Parisi, an apricot miniature poodle, swims not at all, but is fond of a warm beach chair and rubbing hisself in dead seagull guts.

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BEER MASTER’S MUSINGS It’s All about the Suit – Evolution of the Swimming Costume in Western Civilization By Frank Parisi

With all the interest and controversy about “The Suit,” as opposed to what’s inside the suit (namely “The Athlete”), your editors thought it might be of some interest to take a stroll through swimming history, to see how our sport got into the pickle we currently find ourselves in, to wit, the Suit being the $500-$600 indispensable item in the swimmer’s arsenal. To place ourselves in the right frame of mind, we first availed ourselves of Dennis Baker’s wallet, which we found on the deck right before the 200 Fly. It contained an open ticket for brews drunk on the premises of McMenamin’s Edgefield. So here we are, with a couple of pints staring at us from the table, preparing for our research into athletic apparel history. Perhaps our readers already know all about Australian Annette Kellerman, who in the first decade of the 20th century became famous for her advocacy of the right of women to wear a functional bathing suit, and who had to design her own suit for her English Channel attempts. Perhaps they also know how in 1932 Australian Claire Dennis was criticized for showing “too much shoulder blade” at the Los Angeles Games, and how, in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Australian men’s swimming team competed bare-chested for the first time (gasp!) in Speedo “trunks.” Maybe our readers also remember the yards of fabric in the old suits, and recall how it wasn’t until the 1970’s that lycra and nylon were successfully woven together, and suits began to model the body inside them. We presume our readers remember that in 1996 Speedo introduced a proprietary fabric in its new AquaBlade suit, claiming an 8% reduction in drag, and that its introduction of the Fastskin followed in 2000 (supposedly inspired by the skin of sharks). This all culminated with the current LZR RACER which, together with the other “swim skin” suits introduced in the last year, have ushered in the era when suits are weapons with which to attack the water. How in the world did we arrive here? The Ancient Period -- Naked Nudity In ancient Greece, which is a far back as this tavern’s research library extends, utterly no progress was made in the evolution of swimwear. We learn from Euripides, Plato and Plutarch, and from a multitude of artistic depictions of the ancient games, that the athletes competed in the games buck naked (to use the lingua franca of Idaho) with only a thin coating of olive oil to lubricate their magnificent bodies. Unfortunately this offered no commercial opportunity to anyone. If Portland’s Phil Knight had been born, for instance, as Phidippide Papadolopous in Athens in 575 BC, the date of the first Olympiad, he would have starved trying to sell his first sandal or loincloth with a swoosh.

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It’s All about the Suit, Continued: The same attire was preferred in Rome. Although swimmers actually worked out in rectangular pools as a form of exercise, Roman swimmers, like the Greeks before them, competed naked as jaybirds. At first this muddled our already fuzzy brains. But then the fog began to clear and we began to see the wisdom of the ancient custom. We realized that swimming has always been a heroic activity: the record for the longest swim in literature belongs to the Greek hero Odysseus, who after shipwreck swam across the sea for two days and two nights. That’s why Lord Byron swam the Hellespont (crossing from Europe to Asia) in 1810, memorializing Leander’s midnight swim and tryst with Hero. That’s the attraction of swimming from Europe to Africa across the straits of Gibraltar. That’s why Benoit Lecomte swam across the Atlantic (it took, 72 days, swimming 6 to 8 hours a day, every other day). That’s why people all over the world travel to the cliffs over Dover every summer to swim the channel to France, including at least 14 U.S. masters swimmers this summer alone. And that’s why people are competing here at Mt. Hood and in Beijing. Competitive swimming is a heroic sport. The early Greeks also believed that there was, in nudity, something heroic and sacred. Or, as Bette Midler says, “If you got it, flaunt it.”

The “Civilized” (Ha!) European Period: War against the Water It is a sad chapter in the social evolution of Europe that swimming by the common man before the middle of the 19th-century was thought to be both unnecessary and dangerous. It was as if the ancient world’s knowledge of athleticism, competition for honor among one’s peers, and competitive swimming in particular, had never occurred. We have a theory about this. To swim in Greece in an unheated pool is one thing. To swim in London or Berlin in an unheated outdoor pond is quite another. Maybe it was because the science of making Portland cement, which cures under water and is the obvious material with which to construct a pool, was lost until the 19th Century -- maybe that was the reason there were essentially no competitive swimming venues for the public for so long. Whatever the cause, there were essentially no pools reserved for in the cities of Europe from the end of the Roman Empire until the middle of the 19th Century. This meant that most swimming was done, if at all, in the sea, and more likely than not, involuntarily, and fully clothed, boots and all -- i.e., by way of capsizing. About the most dangerous thing a person could do in those days was venture onto the seas. People left on voyages, and sometimes they were seen again and sometimes not. So the whole concept of “swimming” for most folks meant an unwelcome encounter with the sea in all its fury. And yet, this whole situation is a little surprising, since a treatise on swimming, De Arte Natandi, was translated into English from the Latin in 1595 (about the same time as Will Shakespeare finished writing Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer Night’s Dream). The book showed the proper method for the adventurous gentleman to use in a variety of so-called “strokes,” as well as an ingenious way to pare his toenails with a knife while floating on his back! But few gentlemen learned to swim. Women, being chattel, were presumed to have no interest in swimming (perhaps like their presumed lack of interest today in swimming the 1500 meters in Olympic competition, poor things). So for most people, swimming continued to be something not done and certainly not done well.

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It’s All about the Suit, Continued: Supposing a man was adventurous, had read De Arte Natandi, and actually wanted to get into the water, what would he wear? Well, it would make some sense to wear underwear, or at least that seems to make sense to us today. By medieval times, someone had invented pull-on underpants (as a substitute for the ancient world’s leather), but the only fabric made by the Europeans was wool. Nobility occasionally wore linen. By the time of Shakespeare, men’s underwear had evolved to a set of separate leggings, with nothing in the middle. The codpiece in the time of Henry VIII had started out as just a covering of that missing area in the middle. Henry had an image problem, and for him the codpiece turned into a shaped piece of clothing to emphasize his own gigantic estimate of his virility, then fashionistas picked up on a good idea and it became a piece shaped for even more dramatic effect, then in turn something that needed some extra bulk added to it like padding in a bra, and eventually a handy sort of all-purpose pocket of sorts to stow stuff like car keys, Blackberry or iPhone, Cliff Bar, or you name it. Out of all this underwear, none of it would have been suitable for swimming. Or maybe a better way to put is that out of all this early underwear, the only thing suitable for swimming was none of it -- hey! Just like the Greeks. It really wasn’t until 1793 and the invention of the cotton gin, and the development of large cotton plantations in the colonies and the mass production of cotton underwear, that a swimming costume had even a chance of being invented. Only, that’s not exactly what happened. The great thing about cotton was that, unlike wool, it could be washed in hot water and soap, and would come clean. Wool underwear was never really clean. It was oily with lanolin, was so rough it scratched the skin, and worst of all, smelled like a barnyard. When it got wet, its wearer smelled like something between a dead fish and a drowned cat. No one wanted to swim like that. So what did the convergence of underwear and cotton produce? You guessed it: the worst possible swim costume: The Union Suit, aka “Long Johns,” a wrist-to-ankle suit that probably would have guaranteed that competitive swimming would never catch on, although competitive drowning in Long Johns could easily have done so. But not being able to swim in the water was not a great loss to folks for whom even drinking the water was dangerous. Nonetheless, we have seen engravings of persons who hitched up their horses and took their portable bath houses down to the seaside and ventured a few feet out into the liquid realm -- but if the “swimmer” is still attached to the bathhouse with a rope, with his servant on the other end of the rope, and is also clearly standing on the sandy shore, can this really be called swimming? We say, “No.” Our waiter has been eavesdropping at our laptop and has suggested that if we are looking for actual heroic swimming, we might want to turn our investigative eye off shore a bit. He may be on to something there -but who asked him?

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It’s All about the Suit, Continued: The First Real Swimmer, Captain Webb, Crosses the Channel in a Woolie in 1875 The first successful trip across the English Channel was completed, on his second attempt, by Captain Webb in 1875. He wore a long wool suit similar in appearance, if not function, to a Speedo Aquablade. Webb claimed he had a training secret: he dined entirely on healthy liquids -- ale, brandy, coffee and cod liver oil -- although he later said that the fish oil sickened him. He covered himself with porpoise oil, swam the breast stroke and side stroke and completed the swim, despite getting lost and heading in circles as he approached the shore of France. As to his clothing, he said that it was a week before he could wear a shirt collar, “owing to a raw red hem at the back of my neck” which rubbed him every time he put his head up to breathe. He was in the channel twenty-two hours. Webb later made a living on the lecture circuit exhibiting his stroke in hastily constructed tanks made of wood and iron, or swimming off the end of the local pier. The appeal of his act was its novelty -- imagine a man swimming in the water like a fish! And even claiming to enjoy himself! Amongst the Merchant Marine, No “Promiscuous-like Indulgence” in the Water Allowed For most people, swimming remained terra incognita. It simply wasn’t done, and when it was done, it was not approved of. The beer is not making us say this! To illustrate , read the following passage, in which the journalist Laurens Van der Post describes the conversation of two signalmen who stand guard at the entry to the port of Natal (now Durban) in South Africa in the early twentieth century. Mr. Clark and Mr. White (or “Nobby” and “Nockers” as they nickname each other), are harbor watchmen who perform a job unknown today -- they act as the ships’ lifeguards signaling to the harbor merchants what each ship needs (including possible rescue) at one of the most difficult harbor entrances in the world. “Harry England was one of the senior and favourite of their pilots, not only because he was extremely capable, but also because he had served as a Royal Naval Volunteer officer in the World War just behind them. I was to know him well and like him enormously because, in spite of a certain sharpness and quickness of temper, not uncommon among men small in physical stature (for he was a mere five foot six), his was a most generous and chivalrous spirit. Indeed, he was due to die from drowning while trying to save the life of some unknown visitors who had got into trouble in the Indian Ocean surf that always boiled and bubbled along the sands of the north of the Point. . . . It started by Mr. White asking me, as I appeared at the top of the ladder, whether I had heard the news. At my ‘Yes’, both he and Mr. Clark went silent. They busied themselves with preparing tea and putting out their supply of biscuits. I knew instinctively, however, how upset they were and myself remained silent as well. We were on our second cup of tea before Mr. White remarked, “All the same, Nobby old man, I still think he did wrong ever to learn to swim.” The ‘he,’ of course, was Harry England. “I know what you mean, Knocker old man,” Mr. Clark replied thoughtfully, “but I still hold that if he hadn’t leaned to swim we might never have known what manner of man he was, though we knew he was man enough.” This reply seemed to bring some meaning stirring deep down in Mr. White to the boil, for he answered with an emphasis unusually sharp for him.

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It’s All about the Suit, Continued: “But he didn’t have to prove himself that way. He didn’t carry those ribbons and have those gongs pinned on him by the King himself at the Palace for nothing, him as wrote his name on all the seven seas, navigating our ships as well as liners, tramps, and the like. He proved himself in the war along with the best of the officers you and I served under for thirty years or more. He was sailor enough to have known that it was somehow wrong to have been one of these new kind of matelots who go swimming around.” . . . And, feeling that he had perhaps been rather vehement with a shipmate and friend, he added: “Wouldn’t you say, Nobby old man, that a sailor must trust the sea as his natural element and most likely to do what’s right by him and not just use it for pleasure by swimming about in it as all these land-lovers do here for their promiscuous-like indulgence?” He paused, and then repeated his argument with grater precision. “He must know, as all the thousands of sailors before us came to know, that when his name, rank and number are called by Providence, the sooner he goes to his home with respect and at the double, the better it must be.” “Speaking as someone who himself never took to swimming, or holds with it in any particular way,” Mr. Clark replied, “I must admit, Knocker old man, that you have a point, but . . .” Laurens Van der Post, Yet Being Someone Other, pp 49-52 (1982) So, as you can see, the hostility to swimming penetrated deep into the last century. But where did we leave off on the swimming costume? I think we were at the point where knitted cotton was available, and was clean, but it was not much used. Webb wore wool because cotton was too cold for the channel, and he needed all the lard and insulation he could get. From all we have been able to uncover through diligent work in the archives (read: the mazelike garden at the Edgefield) this last half hour, Webb was not alone. The only material that ever made it to the shore was wool. If one wanted to be a competitive swimmer, one had to wear a so-called “swimming costume.”

The Modern Dilemma: Concealers v Revealers Here we reach the main fork in the road. Besides protecting one from the wretched cold of unheated water, there was one other essential purpose of the swim costume: namely, to prevent observation of the genital area by members of the opposite sex. The funny thing is that once the swim costume was invented -- and was more or less a wool version of sawed off cotton underwear -- a never ending battle began against concealment by those who realized that swimsuits offered just about the best way available to admire an athletically developed body. The war continues to this day between those who are trying to cover up the privates (“the concealers”), and those who were trying to suggest there was more where that came from (“the revealers”).

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It’s All about the Suit, Continued: Although it is getting late here at Edgefield, we are intrepidly pursuing every lead in our story. They seem to still believe that one of us is Dennis Baker, so we are still getting served. Here is what we have discovered: In the early days, the “privates” area apparently consisted of 120% of the actual skin area of the body, judging by the looks of the early swim costumes, even if one is counting the various modesty skirts, frills, collars, ruffles, and hats and gloves included in the acreage of fabric employed in the early suits. For a woman, out-of-bounds areas included feet, ankles, calves, knees, thighs, hips, arms and chest. For men, the areas also included the usual areas, but also the chest. The only areas that were certain to have no sexual interest to anyone of either sex were certain portions of the face and the shins. Propulsion through the water was only a secondary concern at this point in time due to the war between the concealers and the revealers. At about this juncture, Ms. Kellerman designed her fitted one-piece swimming costume, got herself arrested for indecency when she wore it in public, then produced her own line of swimwear. As the Olympic movement took off in the modern era, competitive swimming finally took hold for good, and the cold war between the concealers and the revealers heated up. Pools were constructed of all shapes and sizes, and all kinds of folks headed for the water, in all kinds of weather. With the aid of a good barleywine in our cups, we have been able to calculate that the area of the human body that formerly needed to be kept from view apparently shrank rapidly at about the same rate as social attitudes evolved to the point that admiring the human body wasn’t entirely verboten. Surely this development needs further study. Scientists have never given an accurate explanation as to how this could have occurred, or how it has continued to the present day, where, for instance, women on the beaches of South America and in a place called “France” have an area of interest that is smaller than the wedding rings they so often leave in the seat compartments of their Vespas -- or how, in places called Canada and the Midwest, it is always a toss up whether to inflate the rubber raft at the state park or to inflate Mama’s swimsuit. In any event, no one can deny, as our research shows, that ever more areas of the human body were freed from the bondage of the swimming costume. By the 1960’s, female competitive swimmers were basically wearing some version of Kellerman’s tank suit (with or without a “modesty skirt”) and male competitive swimmers were wearing some versions of the Speedo trunk (also known in Australia as “dick pointers,” “sluggos,” “budgie smugglers,” “banana hammocks,” etc). Today, in 2008, the year of the 29th Olympiad, the concealers and the revealers have fought themselves pretty much to a standoff because the LZR Racer, the Blueseventy, the TYR Tracer and the other swimskin suits are a total gamechanger. Now a competitive swimmer can either buy the weapons the arms merchants are selling, or give up the chance to take home some iron. This seems like a shame, at least from the vantage point of this evening at Edgefield. After losing completely the almost religious enthusiasm for athleticism in the water from the ancient games, and turning the water into an enemy, the Europeans finally regained the idea that the swimmer should be an aquatic animal, who was not afraid of the water, but was at home in the water. And with that came beauty in the water, and reveling in the attractiveness of the athletes by way of tighter suits, better fabrics and fewer restrictions on movement.

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It’s All about the Suit, Continued: From our perspective here at the bar in Edgefield -- which is closing now, so we’ve got to wind this up -the swimming costume has come full circle and is headed off to Pluto again. Humanity has finally found its way back to the point of embracing the aquatic environment, but the swim suit makers have missed the turn and gone back to attacking the water. The swimskin suits are undeniably fast, but at what price? Ugliness is a high price! We can’t forget that swimming fast is heroic. No offense to the swimmers involved, but sometimes when we are looking at NBC with the sound off, we can’t tell what gender, if any, some of the swimmers are. This is a shame, because the bodies of the swimmers seemed to embody the heroism of competing in the Games. For our two cents, which is about all that’s left in Dennis Baker’s wallet, we would go back to the war of the concealers versus the revealers, or better, to the Greeks.

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GOOD LUCK SWIMMERS!