Ziegler blames routine change

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By Ryan O'Halloran

BEIJING | Following her elimination from the 800 freestyle Thursday night, defending world champion Kate Ziegler and coach Ray Benecki said the Great Falls swimmer hadn't really been right since the U.S. Olympic team arrived in Singapore late last month and intimated that nearly two months away from her home routine negatively affected her performance.

Ziegler finished fourth in her heat and qualified 10th overall, 1.08 seconds out of the final. Earlier this week, she failed to get out of the 400 freestyle heats. It was a discouraging end to a frustrating six weeks for the 20-year-old Ziegler, who was making her Olympic debut.

"For some people, it's working out great," she said of the marathon travel schedule. "For me, I might have benefited having a little time at home. ... I do really well when I'm not traveling so much or switching things up so much. But I'm not going to blame it on that."

Said Benecki: "For different personalities, [the time away] is compounded, and she likes home."

Women's team coach Jack Bauerle tiptoed around Ziegler's training plan, asking a USA Swimming official to find Benecki. But he disagreed with Ziegler's assertion that the swimmers needed time at home before a domestic training camp.

"I'm not sure about that, to be quite frank, because we've had some great swims here, too," he said.

The issue likely would have been moot had Ziegler held the form she showed in the first half of the 800, an event she entered with the third-fastest time ever (8:18.52).

The race started great for Ziegler, who led at the first five turns. But she was passed on the sixth lap, and she steadily lost time - 0.37, 0.63, 1.12, 1.21, 2.37, 3.92 - to fall eventually into fourth place. She swam an 8:26.98, well off her personal best.

"The first 400 felt great, and I was like, 'This is going to be a good swim,'" Ziegler said. "But it just didn't happen. Some days your body doesn't work. My body chose a bad time to not work."

At Stanford, Ziegler felt she was on the right track with her conditioning even though she missed a few sessions with an illness.

"I felt amazing, having the best practices of my life, one after the other," she said. "But we traveled to Singapore, and things just started to not work. I don't know if it was nerves building up, but I just didn't have it."

Without laying out a specific alternative, it's clear Ziegler would have liked some time training at home before going to an abbreviated Stanford camp and then Singapore. Unlike other Olympic teammates who train together year-round, Ziegler works with her club team and during the school year with the George Mason swim team and is a creature of habit.

Benecki said if he could change anything, it would have been trying to manage Ziegler's time "a little bit wiser, making sure the down time and rest time was productively used and not put more demands on her time. And she also realizes that her time out of the water is probably more valuable, and rest and recovery is doubly important in a meet like this.

"We learned. I guess it's one of those things where you have to go through it to learn from it. She does learn very well. ... We learned how the Olympics are a totally different type of meet. Even life in the village and life at the Olympics is completely different than any other trip she has been on. It was great, but it's still quite different. This experience is valuable."

Ziegler will aim toward the 2012 Olympics in London with world championships in Rome (2009) and Shanghai (2011) in between.

"Even though I had disappointing swims, I'm still an Olympian - I went to the Olympics," she said. "I'm going to enjoy my experience. This is the end of this four-year chapter, but I feel like I'm beginning on my way. I'll put this behind me, take the experience of this, which doesn't get any bigger, and go on to bigger and better things in the future."