The Magical Number 7

Cracking article on swimnews which illustrates Katie Hoff could hit seven gold medals in Beijing BEFORE Michael Phelps gets there! And ... they are both from North Baltimore Aquatics. Imagine that. Imagine your club having two swimmers who each won seven golds at NAGs, then up it to Opens, then up it to the Commonwealth Games, then etc. etc. until you get to the pinnacle. Difficult to even imagine let alone achieve. Scary stuff.

Hoff recently destroyed the US 1,650 record (yards I know but they are the top swimming nation in the world) previously held by world 1,500 record holders Kate Ziegler and Janet Evans. Check out her splits here . The 1,650 is way down the list of results so you have to scroll or search for a long time but its worth the wait. Most interesting are the 'reverse' splits:

First 200, 1:51
First 500, 4:41
First 1,000 9:23
Last 1,000, 9:17
Last 500, 4:37
Last 200, 1:49

Now that's great swimming.

Also, while you're on the results page do a search for the 'Surhoff' family of swimmers. They're also from North Baltimore and, by the looks of their ubiquitous appearance in the top results during the meet, they could be the next big thing from Maryland. You read it here first :)