|
|
|
|
|
We are finally on vacation, and it’s wonderful. Swimming, walking, eating, and …. surprisingly — sewing. Check it out:
We got to do an interview about Parting the Waters with Gina Telaroli on takepart.com — the blog for Participant Productions (An Inconvenient Truth, Syriana, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Visitor…) You can read it here. 15 Aug, 2008 Permanent Link | No Comments Yet »In the wake of his wonderful Olympic success, Cullen’s getting a lot of press lately. You can find most of it by googling him, but I want to post this NPR story. They talk about what Michael Phelps eats for breakfast, Raj Bhavsar — the third ever Indian American to medal in the Olympics, the offensive photo taken by the Spanish basketball team, and Cullen. What interests me is how media reporting is like a giant game of telephone. One outlet reports something, and then another picks it up slightly wrong, and then another picks that one up, slightly more wrong, and before you know it, Cullen founded the Make a Splash campaign. (Not true — it’s a program of the USA Swimming Foundation.) So does that mean Michael doesn’t really eat grits for breakfast? 14 Aug, 2008 Permanent Link | No Comments Yet »When we started making our movie in January 2006, we had never heard of Cullen Jones. Maritza Correia introduced us a few months later, at the National Black Heritage Championship meet. So how happy are we tonight that we wrapped our film tonight as Cullen and his three teammates won Olympic gold in the 4×100 freestyle relay?!??!!! There is a place in sports documentary filmmaking heaven for Jazon Lezak.
Today is our last day of filming for Parting the Waters — the shoot centers around Cullen swimming in the Olympics — in the 4×100 meter freestyle relay. His team set a new world record in the prelims, with Cullen swimming a blazing 47:60 that qualified him to swim one of the legs in the finals tonight. He’ll be swimming the relay with Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, and Jason Lezak. Josh and I are on the edges of our seats! Except that we’re not sitting much, because we have 7 camera crews going with all our other major characters while they watch Cullen swim — in Long Beach, California; Toledo, Ohio; Athens, Georgia; San Pedro Sula, Honduras; Brooklyn, New York; Middleboro, Massachusetts; and Peaks Island, Maine. Tune in! It should broadcast live at about 11:25 PM ET, tonight — August 11. 10 Aug, 2008 Permanent Link | No Comments Yet »I wasn’t there, but I looked it up online. 13-year-old Lia Neal swam like a …. championship swimmer …. at the U.S. Opens this past weekend. I am posting her results in the 50 meter freestyle:
That might be a little small to see, but what it says is that Lia placed 10th in the prelims to qualify her for the B final of the 50 meter free. And that when she swam in the B final, she bettered her time, and came in 10th overall. How great is that? 04 Aug, 2008 Permanent Link | No Comments Yet »When we met Davidson Peguero, he was a 15-year-old swimmer at a community pool in Boston. At 17, and just going into his senior year of high school, he still loves swimming, but he’s a talented multi-sport athlete … and he’s particularly strong at baseball. Last month Davidson tried out for — and made — the Area Code Baseball team. This is the most highly-regarded high school baseball show case in the country — scouts from all the major league teams, as well as all the major baseball colleges, will be there watching Davidson pitch and play. Here’s a photo of Davidson before the practice today.
And here he is with his parents Cynthia and Roger.
If you’re in the Long Beach area, you can go see him play from August 5 to August 10. He’ll be playing for the Yankees. Cheer him on! 24 Jul, 2008 Permanent Link | No Comments Yet »Maritza Correia did a photo shoot for Got Milk? last winter, and the ads are about to premiere tomorrow in the new issue of Sports Illustrated. The ad also features swimmer Ryan Lochte (far left) along with other Olympic athletes. That’s Ritz in the bathing suit, just right of center, looking fantastic.
The ad will be supplemented by a special Olympic section on www.bodybymilk.com. 22 Jul, 2008 Permanent Link | No Comments Yet »This isn’t news the same way as the rest of these posts are news, but …. Saturday I made a deal with a friend of mine. I won’t tell you his part of the deal, but my part was that I would get in the water every day for the next two weeks. So far so good! I swam for about an hour on Saturday evening, in a kidney-shaped hotel pool in New Hampshire. Yesterday I didn’t make it in — we spent the entire day watching other people swim — which is precisely why I made the deal. I feel like the cobbler’s child (who goes barefoot) — always around the water, but rarely in it. But today I drove to a lake in Damariscotta Mills, ME, and took a long swim across. And back. I even have a picture.
|
|
|||||||||
 |
||||||||||
