Friday's Swim Report - The Olympic Golden Boys Hit The Shallow End of The Pool

Lane 1 - Reuters posts "China's favourite Sun relishing his chance - coach.  Proud and patriotic, China's Sun Yang is a worthy successor to distance swimming great Grant Hackett, but will find out in London whether he has the Australian's famed mental toughness, his coach Denis Cotterell said."

Lane 2 - Rolling Stones posts (w/video) "Gold Medal Swimmer Anthony Ervin Is Out to Reclaim His Title.  The fastest swimmer in America right now may not be Michael Phelps or Ryan Lochte but a tattooed, half-black, half-Jewish grad student with Tourette's syndrome who has a history with hallucinogens, tobacco, fast motorcycles and rock & roll, and has more in common with Kurt Cobain than with anyone pictured on a Wheaties box. A more conventional athlete than the 31-year-old Anthony Ervin, who won a gold medal at the Sydney Games in 2000 and then walked away from the sport, would probably be looking at the London Olympics as the final act in a historic career. For Ervin, it's just another step in a puzzling and at times deeply troubled journey. "It's like déjà vu," Ervin says of qualifying for Team USA in the 50-meter freestyle event."

Lane 3 - Adelaide Now posts (w/video) "IF there's anyone qualified to tell James Magnussen to bring it in tight and quietly explain what is about to happen to his life, it is Stephanie Rice.  She dangled her toes over the blocks at her first Olympics in Beijing four years ago, and within a matter of days her life changed."

Lane 4 - Herald Sun posts "GOLD medal hot shot James Magnussen literally walked on water yesterday in Manchester with the 45-strong Australian swim team.  The state-of-the-art diving pool at the Manchester Aquatics Centre has a moveable floor which pool operators set at near-surface level for the team photo of Australia's upbeat band of medal-hungry swimmers.  Magnussen's 4 x 100m freestyle relay teammates Eamon Sullivan and Matt Targett got into the spirit of things with a true Australian crawl.  Both hit their bellies for a mock lap of the diving pool in a few centimetres of water much to the mirth of teammates."

Lane 5 - Reuters posts "Hardy reduced to tears after seeing London pool.  After being at the centre of a disputed doping case for years, Jessica Hardy has learnt the hard way about how to bottle her emotions, but just one look at London's Olympic pool was all it took for her to lose control.  When she walked into the Aquatic Centre and laid eyes on the sparkling blue waters where the Olympic gold medals will be won, she broke down and burst into tears.  "I couldn't help it, I just started crying," she told Reuters. "People were looking at me and wondering what was wrong and some of my team mates were filming me."

Lane 6 - Seattle Times posts "Olympic swimmer Nathan Adrian transforms himself.  Bremerton's Nathan Adrian, always a team-first swimmer on relays, now must get greedy for individual gold in London."

Lane 7 - Seattle PI post (w/video) "Summer Sanders tests out new Olympic swimsuits.  Next was the new suit, the FS3 Elite. I imagined that because this suit had less fabric, it would be easier and faster to put on. Boy was I wrong. Maybe the gripper gloves that came with the suit should have been a warning. It took me almost 25 minutes to get into it with the help of several pairs of hands. I had to step into the suit through its arm hole and the compression pockets felt like the Hulk version of Spanx.  But I made it, mission accomplish and now I have the video and the cut-up knuckles to prove it. But hey, the swimmers tried to warn me."

Lane 8 - Jacksonville.com posts "Former Bolles swim coach Gregg Troy aims to work his magic in London.  Ultra-successful Gators coach now leads U.S. Olympic men.  Gregg Troy is the Midas of the swimming world. Every program he touches turns to gold.  Unlike the mythical king, though, Troy’s golden touch is the result of hard work, not magical powers.  “You can’t do well in swimming without being willing to work hard,” Troy said recently in a phone interview from France."