a very very long post - a new record

apologies for the month long absence
thought i'd make it up by posting a really huge, long post with truckloads of photos
so here it is

rod laver arena - home of the australian open, fina world championships 2007 & many more.

The susie o'neill pool, in all its splendour
view from cheapest seat in the house (with fangilla) but with an amazing bird's eye view of the entire pool (best view to watch the race, i reckon)& starting/ finishing block
see below

take your mark

*beep*
all in less than 5 seconds
(men's 200m freestyle finals)

view from free front row seat tickets on the last day of the competition! (with ah saz)
close up but not so great view of the action (couldn't see who was leading by how much)
see below
slicing into the water in perfect form (men's 50m backstroke finals)

very nice 'curtain of water' with (you'll have to look closer on this) highlights of the days before beamed onto it at the start of the last day of the competition

HIGHLIGHTS:

1. the one & only michael phelps (a very short excerpt)

if you look close enough, he was actually swimming a whole body length in front of the red world record line & smashed his own WR by 0:02.04 (new WR 4:06.22) - this was the 400m individual medley finals

after he'd broken another WR - yeah, what's new

(men's 200m freestyle finals)
1st place: michael phelps (WR 1:43.73)
2nd place: pieter van den hoogenband of the netherlands
3rd place: park tae hwan of south korea

i guess he was in a hurry

2. aaron peirsol

yet another american who broke his personal WR (new WR 52.98 - men's 100m backstroke finals)

the way he did it was as if it was no big deal at all!
this was probably the only time he actually showed anything more than just a polite smile & wave

3. natalie coughlin

guess what
she's american
she broke her own WR (new WR 59.44)
go figure

women's 100m backstroke finals
1st place: natalie coughlin
2nd place: laure manaudou of france
3rd place: reiko nakamura of japan

the star-spangled banner was played so many times i think i know it by heart now

4. federica pellegrini

a surprise WR (1:56.47) by italian pellegrini in the women's 200m freestyle semis
insider's goss: a swimmer can get up to $15000 (if memory serves me right - just something i heard from a more senior colleague at the MSAC when i gushed about how we witnessed 4 WRs in 1 night) per WR

5. the usual aussies

australia's number 1 favourite liesel jones
seen here with tara kirk (usa) after the victory ceremony for the women's 100m breastsroke (new CR by liesel 1:05.72)

eamon sullivan & brenton rickard signing autographs after the victory ceremony for the final event of the competition: men's 4 x 100m medley relay for which australia won gold

they need to slow down
seriously
shown here - lisbeth 'libby' lenton



you wouldn't want to get to close everytime a record is broken

this, i think, for all swimmers is the start of everything

special thanks to fangilla & ah saz for watching the making of history & analysing swimming techniques & screaming themselves hoarse with me.