Duel needs a proper Team Europe
Nobody thought the European team had much of a chance against the Americans at swimming's in Manchester this weekend, but that didn't make the realisation of those fears any less grim.
One look at - 185-78 - tells you the United States team operated at a level far beyond that the combined British, German and Italian line-up could reach.
You may wonder why those latter nations are the three chosen to compete under the European banner. The answer is politics - those were the national teams prepared to take part and, even then, there were several German and Italian stars missing.
After this prototype event, hailed as a success with the media and fans and likely to become an annual fixture, top British swimmers and their head coach demanded more support from European colleagues.
An arena fit for a bigger European team?
And well they might. Barring Jo Jackson, who , every big name in Britain competed. By contrast, top Italians like Federica Pellegrini and Alessia Filippi pulled out, and Germans such as Paul Biedermann and Britta Steffen were nowhere to be seen.
The British contingent boasted nearly 20 individual World Championship medals (in 25m short-course and 50m long-course pools combined); the Germans and Italians had two between them. Britain may produce good swimmers but, on size alone, will never stand up to the American swimming machine - in the same way it became obvious , hence the switch to Europe in 1979.
I asked , now Britain's head coach having led the American swimmers for well over a decade, if he expected more backing from his European counterparts at future duels.
"If we went across Europe and got the top talent it would be a very different situation," he admitted. "But there's a lot of politics involved, unfortunately, and I'm not sure whether it's realistic to think that's ever going to happen.
"But even if we can get the three or four strongest [national] teams in Europe, and get all the best swimmers on board, it's going to be a [competitive] meet. And I think that is realistic."
Pursley doesn't believe getting the whole continent behind a European team is necessary. He would happily cherry-pick an elite squad to face the US, bypassing national squads in order to send out invites on a case-by-case basis, and even discussed such a plan when German and Italian stars began withdrawing.
"It was talked about, but it was really too late in the game," he said. "When the Biedermanns and Pellegrinis started pulling out we started having that conversation but it was too late, people had plans in place. But as far as the future is concerned, that would be great.
"There are politics though, and [the sport's governing body] don't want us to become something so big that they feel we're competing with their events."
Asked how he felt about politics intervening in that fashion, Pursley only said his views were likely to land him in trouble, and left it at that. But should Fina be concerned if national swimming organisations start inventing their own formats and competitions, with widening the sport's appeal in mind?
Surely that's something the sport's governing body should encourage. While there are potential dangers, and Fina would not want to see the continental and world championships devalued, the fact remains that Duel in the Pool is by far the most spectator (and TV) friendly version of the sport. It has a clear scoring system, keeps the action short and sharp, and dispenses with the long-winded slog through the heats to reach the final.
Moreover, the swimmers themselves love it. Every swimmer who opened his or her mouth over the two days used the word "fun" and, even though many only took part as a short break from intensive winter training, the Brits were queuing up afterwards to invite missing Europeans over for the next one.
"This was the first event we've done like this. If other nations get involved and embrace it, it'd be really good and we'd have a chance of sticking it to them," said the ever-ebullient Fran Halsall, winner of three races at the event.
"I hope other European swimmers do get involved, because it's so much fun - even meeting people on the European team who I've never spoken to before. If the other guys and girls from across Europe were here, it'd be amazing."
Jackson, who watched from the sidelines after dropping out through an earlier illness, echoed Halsall's sentiments when we spoke during Saturday's action.
"Hopefully they're going to do these next year and the year after, and we can get more people from Europe involved," said Jackson, twice a silver medallist at this year's World Championships.
"Then we could compete against the likes of America - they are the best in the world, we need the best in Europe to race against them," she added, before reeling off a list of missing stars she would want in next year's squad.
"Britta Steffen should have been here, she would have been great alongside Fran in the 100m freestyle; Filippi would have done the 800m free and some of the medleys. The 400m and 800m freestyle would have been great if Pellegrini could have been here. The French have got a great bunch of sprinters and they'd have been good in the team."
'It looks like a pasting on the face of it' - Liam Tancock
Others on a potential European hit list might include the Dutch women's relay teams, particularly freestyle specialist Marleen Veldhuis, or one of a crop of Hungarian male swimmers to bolster Britain's weaker men's unit.
"I think they all want to be involved," said Jackson, "so hopefully, in the next year or two, they will be. If they see how it's gone this time - with it being on TV with great media coverage - they'll see it's a big event, with America bringing a strong team over."
It is hard to envisage anybody will be happy if Europe put out another squad like the one seen this weekend. The US don't gain anything from facing them, and it does the European swimmers no favours. Expect next year's team to cast the net far wider.
Not that Pursley expressed any displeasure at the performance of this year's European team, despite the 107-point margin of defeat, particularly given most of the European victories were delivered by British swimmers.
"We did at least as well as we should have done on paper coming into the meet," he said. "We knew the US had a much stronger line-up than Europe and, in our squad, we had most of the top British swimmers but they are in various stages of preparation for other priority competitions down the road.
"For some of them the timing worked well - for others it was more of a struggle. That's going to happen. We try to be our best when it counts the most and sometimes you pay the price along the way. Some of the British swimmers just came off the heaviest training cycle in their careers in the last couple of weeks coming into this meet.
"Others, like Fran obviously, were closer to the top of their game and it showed. We didn't have a realistic hope of winning but we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity."
Liam Tancock, who struggled to match his American rivals in Manchester, remained a fervent supporter of the format despite the end result - and had some suggestions of his own for organisers to consider.
"It's not the time of the season to race fast, that's next year at the ," he said. "It's a process for me, getting out there and racing hard against the best people when you're not ready to race fast. I'm out of season now and it's going really well.
"It does look like a pasting on the face of it but if you look at the results and the rankings before the meet, you can see we were always going to come second. We just wanted to give it our best shot. It looked quite bad but I don't think it is.
"Next time we do one of these meets it'd be nice to do it when everyone is ready and in the same suits - maybe after the Commonwealth Games with everyone shaved, tapered and ready to go. Then I think you'd see a different result."
I'm Ollie, and I cover sports which don't normally hit the headlines - from archery to ice hockey. I'll be reporting on all Olympic sports (and some others!) in the run-up to London 2012. For regular updates and links, .
Comment number 1.
At 21st Dec 2009, NorthwichDan wrote:I was at Duel on Saturday and as a swimming fan I thought it was brilliant just to be able to see the likes of Phelps and Adlngton up close. The atmosphere was also tremendous. However, I agree that a competitive event would have been better still. I was especially disappointed that there were empty lanes in many events.
If FINA don't like national associations doing their own thing then why don't they embrace this format and establish a team event witin their calendar. It would be ideal to have this maybe a couple of weeks after the main event of the summer when swimmers would still be in peak condition.
I went to the World Short course champs at the MEN arena last year and I'm sure that a competitive duel event could fill that arena and generate lots of funds for FINA and the national associations. Persoally I'd love to see a 3-way duel of USA vs Europe vs Australia. Two swimmers from each team in each event. This should attract the top swimmers from Europe whatever the politics because if they want to be the best in the world they need to compete against the Americans and Australians more often.
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Comment number 2.
At 21st Dec 2009, felixtzu wrote:Dennis Pursley is a an excellent, knowledgeable, no-nonsense swimming man. He must be immensely frustrated having to deal with the layers upon layers of myopic self-important bureaucracy in the swimming world.
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Comment number 3.
At 21st Dec 2009, hainba wrote:Thanks to the 91Èȱ¬ for covering this excellent event. I couldn't get tickets to take my daughter to Manchester but I made sure that as an aspiring swimmer she watched as much of this event as possible.
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Comment number 4.
At 21st Dec 2009, felixtzu wrote:Appears some eyes are already on a mega-duel:
?
In the present format, I think if we'd had our big three, it would have helped inspire the team beyond just their personal points contribution. When you lose the first few races, looking across at Phelps and Peirsol is probably quite intimidating; however, if you had Paul Beast-of-a-man, Pellegrini and Steffen sitting beside you, maybe you can puff-up your chest a bit more. A team covering the whole of Europe would probably be favourites against the Americans.
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Comment number 5.
At 21st Dec 2009, Tom wrote:Here is how a full strength Europe might have looked (assuming a squad of 36 swimmers):-
Men
Leveaux, Bousquet, Bernard, Biedermann, Colbertaldo, Prilukov, Wildeboer, Donets, Vyatchanin, Borysik, Duboscq, Scozzoli, Giorgetti, Cavic, Svortskov, Jukic, Goddard, Cseh - 18 Swimmers
50m Free - Leveaux, Bousquet, Bernard - Probable 1-2-3 for Europe although always tough to call 50 Free.
100m Free - Leveaux, Bernard, Bousquet - Leveaux and Bernard in the top 3, Adrian probably taking 2nd or 3rd for the US.
200m Free - Biedermann, Bernard, Leveaux - Biedermann wins it, Vanderkaay 2nd, Diebler 3rd.
400m Free - Biedermann, Colbertaldo, Prilukov - Biedermann wins it, Vanderkaay 2nd (would be a great race though), Colbertado 3rd.
800m Free - Biedermann, Colbertaldo, Prilukov - Possible 1-2-3. La Tourette might have sneaked a 3rd.
100m Back - Wildeboer, Donets, Vyatchanin - Thoman probably would have still won (ignoring the DQ), Grevers in 2nd, one of the European's in 3rd.
200m Back - Wildeboer, Donets, Vyatchanin - Vyatchanin 1st, Grevers 2nd, Donets 3rd.
100m Breast - Borysik, Duboscq, Scozzoli - Good race, Alexandrov 1st, Europe 2 and 3.
200m Breast - Borysik, Duboscq, Giorgetti - Same as 100. Alexandrov 1, Europe 2 and 3.
100m Fly - Cavic, Bousquet, Svortskov - In a suit you'd have to say Cavic, with Phelps 2nd, Svortskov 3rd.
200m Fly - Svortskov, Jukic, Cseh - Svortskov 1, Phelps 2, Jukic 3
200m IM - Goddard, Jukic, Cseh - Goddard 1, Cseh 2, Jukic 3
400m IM - Goddard, Jukic, Cseh - Cseh 1, Clary 2, Jukic 3
4 x 100m Free - Leveaux, Bernard, Bousquet, Biedermann - Winners, smash WR (possibly sub 3minutes)
4 x 100m Medley - Wildeboer, Duboscq, Cavic, Leveaux - This would be close! I'll go with US though
Total Male Points - 86 Europe/47 USA
Women
Steffen, Halsall, Veldhuis, Pellegrini, Balmy, Jackson, Adlington, Simmonds, Spofforth, Putra, Jukic, De Ronchi, Efimova, Sjostrom, Segat, Belmonte, Miley - 17 Swimmers
50m Free - Steffen, Halsall, Veldhuis - Europe 1-2-3
100m Free - Steffen, Halsall, Veldhuis - Europe 1-2-3
200m Free - Pellegrini, Balmy, Steffen - Pellegrini 1, Schmitt 2, Balmy 3
400m Free - Pellegrini, Balmy, Jackson - Pellegrini 1, Jackson 2, Schmitt 3
800m Free - Adlington, Balmy, Jackson - Europe 1-2-3
100m Back - Simmonds, Spofforth, Putra - Simmonds 1, Hoelzer 2, Spofforth 3
200m Back - Simmonds, Spofforth, Putra - Simmonds 1, Hoelzer 2, Pelton 3
100m Breast - Jukic, De Ronchi, Efimova - Soni 1, Hardy 2, Jukic 3
200m Breast - Jukic, De Ronchi, Efimova - Soni 1, Freeman 2, Jukic 3
100m Fly - Halsall, Veldhuis, Sjostrom - Halsall 1, Magnuson 2, Vollmer 3
200m Fly - Sjostrom, Segat, Belmonte - Descenza 1, Vollmer 2, Segat 3
200m IM - Segat, Belmonte, Miley - Smit 1, Kukors 2, Segat 3
400m IM - Segat, Belmonte, Miley - Smit 1, Knutson 2, Miley 3
4 x 100m Free - Steffen, Halsall, Veldhuis, Pellegrini - Europe destroy the WR
4 x 100m Medley - Simmonds, Jukic, Halsall, Steffen - Close race but Europe to edge it
Total Female Points - 76 Europe/55 USA
Total Points - 162 Europe/102 USA
As I've said before the chances of this happening aren't great but hopefully I've shown how this event could have turned out/could turn out in the future. Two things to bear in mind for next year's event - a) the suits. Expect Phelps to win every race he swims in. b) Lochte swimming for the US.
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Comment number 6.
At 22nd Dec 2009, Kpeanuts42 wrote:Really?
Bernard and Leveaux in 200m free?
And maybe Gilot for the 100m given his performances in 2009?
And all the talk of Biedermann, Steffen and Pellegrini, what about Meeuw, probably one of the best competitors of the past couple of years and has been fantastic this year.
And Feldwher couldn't lose his place could he? 59.1 at worlds?
I would argue you pick the team the same way the US do, base it on quickest swimmers at Worlds, University Games, European Long Course, rather than rankings or relatively unimportant short course meets. Obviously it is a short course meet itself, but that way you guarentee the big names that all the fans want to see and it gives a sound grounding for selection, no questions asked.
I'd also keep it to a few nations, maybe add France, and then say 2 bonus male and female swimmers from other European Nations. I would say you could lose any sense of team spirit and cameraderie with a selection of random athletes across Europe given no time to bond. Anything that helps the atmosphere.
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Comment number 7.
At 23rd Dec 2009, Tom wrote:The reason Bernard and Leveaux are swimming the 200 free is down to the limit of the team size, which I believe was 36. Picking the very best at each event would have led to a team of over 50.
Its worth noting that both these guys can pull out great (suited) 200 Frees SC. Bernard's been a 1:43.4 this year and Leveaux went 1:44.6 last year.
You make an interesting point about Gilot though, he was the toughest guy to leave out, and in hindsight I probably would have tried to find a way to get him in, for his 200 Free SC ability and also replacing Bousquet in the 100 and having him for the relay. Bousquet v Biedermann for the 4 x 100 free relay would then be a headache but having seen Biedermann produce some stunning relay swims before he hit the headlines I would be hard pressed to take him out of there!
Feldwehr v Scozzoli is tough, although I kept Scozzoli in because of his performance at the Duel.
I'll have to disagree with you on Meeuw being one of the best competitors in recent years. He did perform at the world's, silver behind Koga, but I wasnt impressed with him in Beijing (didn't make the final, Vyatchanin bronze) and have noticed that at the major competitions he often goes in as one of the fastest guys, but underperforms. He is incredibly talented though, and not one of the biggest guys around, so I hope the performance at the world's is a sign of things to come.
I think a European team with Britain, Germany, Italy, France, Russia and Hungary would have been enough to beat the USA in SC metres.
I am also coming around to the idea of USA (or The Americas) v Europe v Rest of the World (Aus, China, Japan etc.). 2 swimmers per region.
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Comment number 8.
At 24th Dec 2009, Matt wrote:Tom great job on the real Euro team and scoring the meet and whatnot, but you're also just basing this on the team the USA brought to this Duel, which wasn't their strongest. Eric Shanteau didn't compete, neither did Kasey Carlson, Ben Wildman-Tobriner, Cullen Jones, NATALIE COUGHLIN, Dave Walters, RYAN LOCHTE. Plus the fact that six-time Olympic champion Aaron Peirsol was obviously not swimming to his potential. I do agree that a fully stacked Euro team could give the USA a run for their money, but when the USA is a FULL strength, it may take the entire world to beat them. Medley relay consisting of Irie, Rickard, Cavic, and Cielo v. Peirsol, Sheanteau, Phelps, and Walters/Adrian/Lezak?? Now that would be a race.
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Comment number 9.
At 27th Dec 2009, Tom wrote:A fully stacked European team would do more than just give the USA a run for their money, I think they would be strong favourites to win.
I don't buy your argument that the USA were that far under full strength. Lochte was their biggest loss who might have cleaned up in the IMs and 200 Back. Coughlin has not been at her best recently, which is (was) admittedly devastating. I dont see Shanteau doing much better than Alexandrov did. Wildman-Tobriner and Cullen Jones wouldn't put much of a dent into the French sprinters and its not like Nathan Adrian was bad! Walters and Carlson? a) Do you think they'd have made this team? and b) They would have changed the top 3 in any events? (I don't).
One potential drawback of having a European team with so many different countries (and mother tongues) competing would be the team spirit. It was noted this year that the E-Stars (that name needs to change) were sticking together by their nationality. A motivated, strong spirited European team would be a difficult thing to acheive and is something that the US will have the upper hand in going forward.
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Comment number 10.
At 6th Jan 2010, Tom wrote:Now the new suits have come into effect, I've had a look at the WRs pre-Polyurethane. The results can be found here - .
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Comment number 11.
At 6th Jan 2010, Kpeanuts42 wrote:Agreed.
I'd say the best way is to limit it to 4 nations, and the teams be picked on performance at 2/3 chosen meets over the previous 18 months. That way it isn't down to opinion, as everyone will disagree to kingdom come, and you are gaurenteed the real big names not just short course specialists (with no disrespect to any of them) and, like the Ryder cup, a couple of bonus athletes invited by the host nation?
Mouthwatering prospect.
I'd have to say that I'd back the US though, just because, and this is a generalisation, they know how to race head-to-head in duel meets. Spent 4 years out there and they just compete on a different level, they will give anything to beat the guy next to them. They'd also, as mentioned, have the obvious advantage of team-spirit.
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