Hardy fades down the stretch - twice

小臭贝

What happened to Jessica Hardy Thursday night at the U.S. Swimming Championships?

Overshadowed by the 100m butterfly final that featured Michael Phelps was the women's 100m breaststroke final, which pitted the top U.S. women's breaststroker (Rebecca Soni) against her Trojan Swim Club teammate and the event's world record holder (Hardy).

But the race in Irvine, Calif. was hardly a contest.

Hardy touched the wall after 50 meters in first, slightly ahead of Soni, but then faded back -- way back -- and swam the final length in 38.32 seconds, almost eight seconds slower than her opening 50. It was the slowest second lap in the race and she placed seventh.

Soni, on the other hand, opened up a huge lead in the second 50 meters and finished with a time of 1:05.73 -- 2.34 ticks faster than silver-medalist Ann Chandler. Hardy recorded a 1:09.24, a far cry from her world record time of 1:04.45. She swam a 1:06.53 in Thursday morning's prelims.

Hardy returned to the pool two events later for the 50m freestyle final, an event in which she was the top seed after touching in 25.11 during her prelim swim. But as was the case in her first final of the night, Hardy failed to accelerate enough and finished sixth with a time of 25.44. Kara Lynn Joyce won the race in 24.86.

A difference of nearly eight seconds in Hardy's 100m breaststroke split times doesn't happen unless something is wrong. She was the women's 2009 World Cup champion and won two races (100m breast, 50m free) during the 2009-10 Grand Prix season.

The numbers don't seem to add up.

As we know, this is Hardy's first major meet since she tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug at the 2008 Olympic Trials and then was suspended from the sport. The Court of Arbitration for Sport concluded in May that Hardy was not aware the banned substance, clenbuterol, was in the supplement she was taking at the time of the positive test.

An emotional Hardy told the Associated Press Thursday night, "I definitely had some rough stuff this past year, I'm battling."

Hardy is slated to compete in the 100m freestyle on Friday, her last event of the meet. She has yet to qualify for the Pan-Pacific Championships later this month; the top two swimmers in each event at Nationals earn a spot on that team.

The swimsuit effect
We are 19 events into Nationals and not a single world or American record has fallen. Ariana Kukors missed the 100m butterfly world mark by 1.26 seconds Tuesday night, and Soni's 100m breaststroke time was 1.28 seconds shy of that record.

It's a far cry from what took place at the 2009 FINA World Championships. To refresh your memory, 43 -- yes, 43 -- world records were set in the 40 events that took place in the pool. Of those 40 events, all but 13 were won with world-record times.

Of course, the absence of any world records in 2010 is due to FINA's new swimsuit regulations. We'll have more on this story next week.