Ryan Lochte gets a rare victory over Michael Phelps Sunday night (Jason Redmond, Associated Press)
As American Jessica Hardy capped a fabulous fall with a big payday (which might at least make a dent in her extraordinary legal fees), Michael Phelps lost for the second weekend in a row (and he even shaved this time).
In Phelps’s case, his defeat did not come in a meet, however; it was during an awards ceremony in Los Angeles. Hardy’s huge win came a half a world away in Singapore.
Ryan Lochte ended Phelps’s two-year run as male swimmer of the year at the USA Swimming Foundation’s Golden Goggle awards in Los Angeles Sunday night, hours after Hardy claimed the $100,000 prize for an overall victory among women in the five-stop FINA/ARENA World Cup. (South African Cameron van der Burgh won among men as American Peter Marshall earned $30,000 for third place.)
Hardy, who trains under Dave Salo in Irvine, Calif., watched nervously as Sweden’s Therese Alshammar set a world record in the the 50 fly (24.38) in Singapore, coming within 10 points of Hardy’s score of 210. Alshammar got the $50,000 prize for second place.
Later, the short-haired, clean-shaven, black-suited Phelps won male race of the year for his come-from-behind defeat of Serbian Milorad Cavic in the 100-meter fly at the world championships in Rome. But he watched Lochte capture the night’s biggest honor with a celebratory “jeah,” his favorite word for all things positive and worthy of exclamation.
Lochte, who trains under Gregg Troy in Gainesville, Fla., won fewer medals than Phelps in Rome (four gold and one bronze to Phelps’s five gold and one silver), but knocked down a hallowed world record — Phelps’s in the 200 medley — and helped set another world mark in his debut on the 800 free relay team. (Both he and Phelps were honored for competing on that squad, which upset the heavily favored France in the event at the world championships.)
Phelps seemed to enjoy this defeat considerably more than the assortment he got handed recently in Europe. Just over a week ago, Phelps showed up to World Cups in Stockholm and Berlin without a long, technical suit or a shave and struggled mightily, failing to win a single gold.
In other news, Rebecca Soni of Plainsboro, N.J., topped Ariana Kukors for female swimmer of the year after setting a world record and winning gold in the 100 breaststroke in Rome. Kukors won the women’s performance of the year for her world-record performance in the 200 individual medley in Rome. Eddie Reese, meantime, claimed coach of the year; he sent six swimmers to this summer’s world championships.
Jessica Hardy celebrates win in Berlin last weekend (Gero Breloer, Associated Press)
Hardy’s effort in the 100 breaststroke at the U.S. Open in Federal Way received a nomination for performance of the year, but it was her consistent dominance at the World Cups this fall that confirmed she truly is back — and likely will give training partner Soni a fierce run in the breaststroke events next year.
While Soni claimed the Olympic gold last year, Hardy served one year of a two-year ban for taking a banned substance found in a tainted dietary supplement. The circumstances of her case — she had sought advice from trusted sport officials about the product, and had received assurances from the company director that the supplement was tested by an outside company and could not be contaminated — got her ban cut in half by an American arbitration panel.
But she ended up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the original ban, and it’s still not over. FINA and the World Anti-Doping Agency appealed the shortening of the ban and want to keep her out of the 2012 Summer Games; a decision is expected before the end of the year.
For now, however, Hardy can celebrate a return in which she has set about a half-dozen world records and given Australian Leisel Jones fits.
And Lochte can enjoy a rare year when he doesn’t play second fiddle to Phelps.
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