MillionFace

Does Dolphin Kick really win races ?

Seemingly yes, Phelps has shown it when swimming freestyle he always stayed underwater longer than any of his competitors, but the question really is, did we learn it from Phelps or did he learn it from its history and perfect it, to take advantage of FINA’s rules governing the underwater portion of the race? so what’s all this sudden buzz about dolphin kick ?

IIT Kanpur alum and George Washington University researcher Rajat Mittal has spent the past five years studying Phelps and his dolphin kick - also known as the ‘Berkoff Blastoff’ after the Harvard backstroker who used it the first time at the Olympics 20 years ago.

It all began when Mittal, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, got involved in a US Navy project to study dolphins, thought to be the ultimate swimmers. ”We were asked to understand how fish swim so efficiently,” Mittal recalled in an interview Wednesday, ”and it seemed like a natural extension to apply this to human swimming.”

In collaboration with USA Swimming, Mittal and his colleagues began studying 50 American swimmers, eventually finding that of all of them, Phelps was able to use his body ”in a way that is very, very different from the other athletes…much closer to dolphins than we have seen for any other swimmer.”

And just how does he do that? Phelps is able to straighten his massive size 14 feet to a greater angle (about 15 degrees) than any other swimmer, to reduce resistance. ”Almost 90 percent of all the thrust is coming from the foot,” Mittal explained. ”And the flatter and bigger your foot is, you essentially have a bigger paddle. Michael’s foot size and the angle he generates with it plays a big role in his ability to swim very well.”

So never again laugh at someone with big, flat feet. There’s gold in them!

But foot-size isn’t the only reason behind the Phelps phenomenon. Studies show that his powerful lungs can hold out longer underwater than most swimmers, eliminating the splash and drag that would result if he surfaced early. ”If the body is moving on the surface, it creates waves,” Mittal explained. ”So if you can move underwater instead you can actually eliminate some resistance.”

The Harvard swimmer David Bergkoff figured this out first 20 years ago, using it effectively at the start and the turns to win four Olympic medals, even as other swimmers copied the technique. Swimming officials eventually imposed a limit of 15 meters underwater, a threshold Phelps exploits faster and better than anyone else.

So the crux of the story is if you want to haul gold like Michael Phelps, study Dolphins first and then Michael Phelps

12 hours ago, I put my second blog on Michael Phelps winning his 6th gold and there he is my man winning his 7th Gold. With this 7th gold, Michael Phelps swam into Olympic history with a magnificent finish Saturday, his arms soaring through the water one last time to get a hand on the wall to match Mark Spitz’s performance in the 1972 Munich Games.

Michael Phelps remained on track to break an Olympic swim record — by a fingertip.

He got his hands on the wall a hundredth of a second ahead of Cavic — a finish so close the Serbians filed a protest and swimming’s governing body had to review the tape down to the 10-thousandth of a second.

Phelps’ time was 50.58 seconds, the only time in these Olympics that he won an event without breaking the world record.

Though Serbian coaches have asked for a review of the race and filed a formal, written protest. Swim officials broke down the video frame-by-frame to one ten-thousandths of a second and determined Phelps touched first.

This is what Mark Spitz had to say:

“It goes to show you that not only is this guy the greatest swimmer of all time and the greatest Olympian of all time, he’s maybe the greatest athlete of all time. He’s the greatest racer who ever walked the planet.”

Isn’t this what I said in my earlier bog, exactly same words.

Michael Phelps celebrates after winning the men’s 100m butterfly swimming final during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

Phelps said he had to take an extra half-stroke to reach the wall and admitted after that, “I thought I lost the race. But I guess that half-stroke — I mean, I’m really sort of at a loss for words.”

After seeing his name listed first on the scoreboard, Phelps yelled and did a few fist pumps, the most emotion he has shown after a win. He said he felt “relief, excitement — everything. … I had to take my goggles off first to make sure the 1 was next to my name. That’s when I sort of let out my roar.”

Cavic, actually a California native, led most of the race but took the loss gracefully.

“One one-hundreth of a second is the most difficult loss you can have, especially at the Olympics,” he said. “I did see the replays. But if you’re asking if I’m disappointed, it’s a complete miracle to me that I’m here. I retired a year and a half ago and came back to swimming thinking I was good enough to compete at this level. So I’m enjoying this.

“I wish I was the gold medalist. But I’ll take the silver medal and I’m very comfortable with this.”

Go Mike, we are waiting for the 8th one and we know you will do it. There never was and never will be a bigger sportsperson than you

One more down and two more to go, for a man who is on a mission this Olympics to bring home a record-setting eight golds, Michael Phelps notched another gold medal Friday, winning the 200-meter individual medley in a world-record time of 1:54.23.

Here is my earlier blog on Phelps ( Phelps wins 3rd gold, joins elite club record for the most gold medals over an Olympic career ), for those of you keeping track, that makes it six gold medals – and six world records – in Beijing. (Phelps also scored six golds and two bronzes four years ago, in Athens.).

Like Spitz, Phelps has set a world record in every final he’s raced in Beijing. He lowered his own world record in the 200 IM to 1 minute, 54.23 seconds to finish ahead of silver medalist Laszlo Cseh of Hungary and U.S. teammate Ryan Lochte, who won bronze.

This is what Bob Bowman U.S. swimming coach had to say about his performance

“I think if it were all over today, he’d be the greatest Olympian who ever lived,” Bob Bowman.

About his 200-meter IM swim, Phelps said, “I just wanted to step on it in the first 50 [meters] a little bit and try and get out to an early lead …. I knew in the first half, if I got a big enough lead, I thought I could hang on and that’s all I wanted to do.”

Laszlo Cseh of Hungary placed second to Phelps – for the third time in Beijing. “I tried to do a harder start in the first 100 meters but Michael’s breaststroke is awesome,” Cseh said. “Michael is unbeatable.”

The bronze went to Phelps’s teammate – and friend – Ryan Lochte, who won the gold medal in 200-meter backstroke earlier in the day. (Two races in a single day is a “double” in swimmer parlance.)

He competes Saturday morning (Friday night EST) in the 100 butterfly finals. If he finishes ahead of teammate Ian Crocker in that race, he is expected to swim Sunday with the U.S. men in the 4×100 medley relay finals.

With victories in both, Phelps would eclipse Mark Spitz’s seven gold medals at the 1972 Olympics.

I am very confident in a day from now Phelps will win his ever eluding two more golds to be placed in the hall of fame as the best swimmer who ever walked planet Earth.

Good luck Mike, You will rise and shine, we are with you

Great, The Gambino Family is making news again after keeping low for a few years. Last time they got world media hype was on June 10, 2002 when  “The Dapper Don” John Gotti died of throat cancer  at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri.

And now head of the Gambino family John A. “Junior” Gotti has been arrested on charges linking him to drug smuggling ring and 3 prior mob-hits. Gotti is the son of “Dapper Don” John Gotti, the late Gambino family boss

Gotti, was arrested by the FBI at his Long Island home. Feds in Tampa, Fla. The Feds are expected to announce a racketeering indictment, charging Gotti with murder conspiracy in connection with killings in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to the official.

A separate indictment charges five other men with racketeering. It alleges some of them were involved with Gotti in one of the three New York murders, according to the official. It also alleges a fourth killing in New York, not linked to Gotti.

Gotti has two sisters, Victoria and Angela. He also had two brothers, Frankie and Peter, though Frank was struck by a car during childhood and killed. In 1990, Gotti married Kimberly Albanese, daughter of Gambino crime family mobster Phillip Albanese. Gotti lives in Long Island.

Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva reacts after breaking the world record with 5.04 meters during the pole vault event at the Monaco Grand Prix international athletics meet

A friend of mine told me over the Phone there was an Earthquake in LA, just minor tremors, people started running out. Don’t know the extent of damage yet.

Any updates, please send your comments

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Let’s first try and understand what a minimum security prison is : As per the FBI (here is the link (http://denver.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/2008/spamking072208.htm) a minimum security institutions, also known as Federal Prison Camps (FPCs), have dormitory housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and are work and program-oriented. FPCs are generally located adjacent to larger institutions, where inmates help serve the labor needs of the larger institution.
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Guess what? Your interest in modeling could spoil the institution’s “homely environment”. Sounds like a Joke right, No but is this is exactly what Sampurna Lahiri had to face, she was denied admission to Class XI of Alipur’s Multipurpose Government Girls School in Kolkata School for her interest in modeling.
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The happy family in Dunn Way, Blacktown, Australia turned into a cementary, as the husband, Sanjay Mehta, is alleged to have murdred his wife and daughter. As per police, Sanjay took members of his family for a drive to the Blue Mountains with the dead bodies of his wife and a girl in the car! He had also instructed other members of his family to lie about the where-abouts of his wife and daughter, for the last few days. Sanjay placed the bodies of wife Jyoti and 9-year-old daughter in the boot of Toyota Camry car and took two other family members for a drive to Echo Point lookout at Katoomba. While the other members were out, Sanjay took the two bodies and threw over the cliff.

Police also states that Sanjay’s mobile phone was registered making a two-way trip to Katoomba and back to Blacktown the next morning. Subsequent records of conversations - obtained via a listening device in the family home - recorded Mehta coaching a member of his family whom he said had been with him while he drove around Blacktown on the night of May 5. That family member has since changed his evidence, and told police that he and Sanjay had in fact driven to the Blue Mountains that night.

The Indian national, employed as an parking technician, met his wife on the internet in July 2006. She moved to Australia to marry him in May the following year.

Sanjay will remain in custody until his next appearance in the same court on July 21. Police will allege he murdered his wife and the girl in the family home, then drove them to the Blue Mountains before throwing them off a cliff. They say he has shown no remorse and has continuously denied his involvement, despite an “extremely strong” prosecution case.

Oscar-nominee Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday at his downtown Manhattan residence, naked at the foot of the bed with prescribed sleeping pills in the apartment, police said. The Australian-born actor was just 28.

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Toshi Sabri, the most popular former contestant of Voice of India reality talent show, was stabbed by three three unidentified men who hit him on the head with a hammer and knives. Toshi Sabri was out on a dinner date with a young NRI fan Harpreet Kaur at Vishal Hall near the Andheri (E) railway station when he was assaulted.

Sabri was walking near a railway track with a friend when he was attacked resulting in head injuries. Sabri was rushed to Nanavati Hospital in Vile Parle, around 3 km away. He was recuperating and out of danger, Prasanna said, adding that Sabri’s friend was unharmed.

A Jaipur boy who had moved to Mumbai recently, Toshi was among the top 12 finalists in the Star Voice of India contest.
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