Summer Swim League - GRPA State Meet - Finals
Girls 9/10 Medley Relay - Bailey (Fly)
If you've seen the video you may not be able to tell what happens and you may not be able to read the scoreboard at the end of the race...but ultimately Bailey's team finished 2nd. They lost to the Cobb - A team by .17 seconds...
There is one thing that is important to note here before I get into explanation. The girl that swims the fly leg in for the Cobb team (the one that blew by Bailey in the video), Addie, is an exceptional swimmer. She was within .5 seconds of breaking the state record. Addie and Maddie (the backstroker for Bailey's team) were the two best swimmers at this meet, and we knew going into this race that Bailey would not be able to beat Addie. We were hoping she'd be handed a big enough lead to hold her off, or stay close enough for the freestyer to catch Cobb's anchor.
As it turns out, Maddie started off the race in the backstroke and she got the team the lead. But being honest, I have to say as soon as the backstroke leg was over, I turned to my wife and said, "That's not a big enough lead"...
The breaststroker opened up the lead slightly so Bailey was the first one in on the fly leg. However, before she even takes 3 strokes, Addie has already caught her. Bailey swims a great leg. She only breathes 2x and her split is around a 15.2. Unfortunately, Addie's split is a 12.79...
When the freestyler hit the water she was about 1.4 seconds back, and she lost by .17...it was an awesome swim and had the pool been 26 yard she'd have gotten the win...
Unfortunately, it looked as if Bailey was the reason the team lost, and in fact, she took it quite hard...but I told her it wasn't her fault and when I looked at the splits I was right...
In the prelims Baileys team was faster than it was in the finals. In fact, had they matched their prelim time they would have won the race. So I looked at the official splits in the race, which are done in pairs (Back/Breast split and Fly/Free split). In the prelims it broke out this way...
Back/Breast - 33.10
Fly / Free - 28.45
In the finals these were the splits
Back/Breast - 33.62
Fly / Free - 28.67
So Bailey and the freestyler were .2 slower but the back and breast stroker were over a half a second slower...that tells me the biggest impact was on the front end of the race.
Also when I look at the video and get the fly splits for all the swimmers I can see start I get the following...
Lane 1 - 16.02
Lane 2 - 15.75 (this is Bailey's friend Lexi)
Lane 3 - 15.08
Bailey - 15.20
Addie - 12.79
Lane 6 - 16.59
Here were the final results with the splits included...
Code:
Cobb - A - 1:02.12 34.67 : 27.45
FCT - A - 1:02.29 33.62 : 28.67
FCT - B - 1:04.99 35.33 : 29.66
Cobb - B - 1:05.05 no splits listed
Alpharetta - A - 1:05.33 34.53 : 30.80
Gwinnett - A - 1:06.82 36.35 : 30.47
Carrollton - A - 1:06.91 36.66 : 30.25
DeKalb - A - 1:09.46 38.80 : 30.65