2000 | Brooke Bennett | USA Olympic Gold | 4.05.80 | 400m Freestyle | Sydney Olympic Games

[novamist]

I can't believe this was almost ten years ago.

[SamBond]

Atkinson is my swim coach at Wright State

[mc1703]

to put this into some context, adlington went through the first 400m of her WR 800m swim in 4:05:72.

if bennett and fourth placer atkinson were swimming a 2*400m relay, they would have finished 0.41 seconds behind adlington!!!

[juandi2570]

yeah but Benneth didn't have a LZR in 2000. Make No mistake a about it, Benneth could've been the best long distance swimmer of all time if she hadn't had his shoulder problems. She was forced to retire at age 200 and had two or three surgeries. at the time she retired, everybody thought she was gonna be better than the mythic Janet Evans.

[beckerbombs]

Everyone thought she was going to be better than Evans. What a farcial statement. You must be Brooke Bennett's mother.

[juandi2570]

and you must be Evan's dad hahhahahaa, lol.

[beckerbombs]

Name me one credible expert who thought Bennett was going to surpass Evans. I die to hear your answer.

[juandi2570]

Kool down man, yes, Evans has been the greatest long distance swimmer ever. No question about it. Brooke is one of the best ever but not close to The great Janet Evans.

[MachineRocket]

All I can say is that the United States women's Olympic swim team could've used a person like Bennett in the 800 meters freestyle. After all, Kate Ziegler (the current World Record holder in 1500m who also attends the same school that I do) did not put her best effort. In fact, you can say the same about the US women's team altogether. There were only 2 gold medals (Coughlin and Soni) within the team! Gosh, this team really missed a person like this as well as Jessica Hardy, who would've helped.

[MachineRocket]

I absolutely agree with you juandi2570. Back in the Sydney 2000 Olympics games, Bennett did use have the LZR racer. Yet, we know that LZR racer has shown reduce racing times from 1-2%. If Adlington didn't have the LZR racer last year during the Olympics, then I doubt that she would have broken Janet Evans World Records in 1988 and in 1989. In addition, I don't even think that Adlington would have broke Bennett's record in 2000 as we see here.

[juandi2570]

I meant to say Benneth retired at age 20 not 200 hahahaha.

[MachineRocket]

Actually, Bennett stated last year in 2008 that she was retired then. However, the last official race that Bennett was last seen to have been in was in 2007 in AAA swim meet. It was noted that although she had missed the games in 2004, she was planning to make the U.S. Olympic swim team at the 2008 Olympic games. So was Kaitlin Sandeno, Diana Munz, and Tara Kirk. Unfortunately, she was not able to return to form. So she eventually retired. So did Sandeno, Munz, and Kirk. The US team missed them