Return from Swimming

Never fear, I am still here. As planned I arrived back in Tucson yesterday following my second round trip to Austin, Texas. This time, however, I managed to confuse my flight plans and so I ended up flying to the infamous Kansas before hopping on a plane to the rapidly warming Tucson, on a trip that lasted the best part of eight hours; not great considering the usual two hour stone's throw. All of that, alongside the laborious swimming meet, has held me back from posting, for which I am, as always, deeply regretful. Even so, I have so far failed to embark on my frequent binge of intellectual stimuli from which I bring you my edited pearls of trifle. Nevertheless, I can tell you that the almost super-human Michael Phelps (who was recently polled as the third greatest sporting wonder behind Federer's forehand in The Times) made an appearance in Texas to swim the 200m Individual Medley. Rumour has it that he only showed up to endorse one of his many sponsors, which seems sensible. Otherwise, the swimming was fast. For example, to make the 100m Freestyle final you would have had to go below 49.7 seconds, a time that, in Britain, would surely win the National Championships. If you happen to want to watch a video of the event, it's right here. In fact, having watched it again, I urge you to watch this video to give you a brief taster of the what's to come this summer in Beijing. That event could well emulate what happened in Austin that night. Indeed, if you're interested in how I got on, flick through some of the finals in the sprint freestyle events - the 200m Freestyle was particularly embarrassing.