Skip to footer

Olympics swimming: Five athletes to watch

Team USA and Team Australia traditionally dominate in the pool, and London should see a renewal of that rivalry. But there are also a few surprises:

1. Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, USA

Mark J. Terrill/AP
Michael Phelps (r.) and Ryan Lochte talk after competing in the men's 200 meter individual medley final at the US Olympic swimming trials in June in Omaha, Neb.

  • By Mark Sappenfield Staff writer

OK, let's get them out of the way first. They are the great two-headed monster of these Games. 

For his part, Michael Phelps is going after history. Again. If he can win three medals of any color (which he almost certainly will do), he will pass Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina as the most-decorated Olympian in history. She has 18 medals. He has 16, of which an astounding 14 are gold (already an Olympic record – by five).

But Ryan Lochte is trying to prove that he, not Phelps, is currently the best swimmer in the world after beating him twice at the 2011 world championships. Phelps, however, beat Lochte in three of four races at US Olympic trials.

Though the two are both set to swim in seven races, they will only face off twice – in the 200 and 400 meter individual medleys. Their other two individual races are different (Phelps the 100 and 200 butterfly and Lochte the 200 back and 200 free), and the remaining three are relays on which they would be teammates.  

1 of 5
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.