The USC Trojans are on a roll in the open water.
Yesterday, Catherine Vogt coached Haley Anderson to a victory in the FINA Olympic Marathon Swim Qualifier in Setubal Bay, Portugal.
Now, she is up on the feeding station once again today. This time, she will coach another Trojan Ous Mellouli, the Tunisian Olympic gold medalist in the 1500m freestyle at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, in the men’s qualification race starting at 4 pm local time.
In an unusual twist of open water swimming history, Coach Vogt could be in a unique position on the feeding stations at the 2012 London Olympics.
Because USA Swimming has traditionally named the personal coach of its Olympic marathon swimmers as members of the USA Swimming Olympic Swim Team staff, Coach Vogt may be named to the American Olympic coaching staff. Additionally, if Mellouli qualifies today, Coach Vogt could potentially be holding an American flag on August 9th at the women’s race and a Tunisian flag on August 10th during the men’s race.
The Trojan Swim Club and USC coach has a way in motivating, educating and guiding great distance swimmers from Chip Peterson and Haley Anderson to Mellouli who she has helped in his open water swimming aspirations.
Mellouli has potentially two ways to make it to the Olympic 10km Marathon Swim final. If he finishes in the top 9 swimmers, he will make it. If he does not finish in the top 9, but finishes ahead of Chad Ho of South Africa, then he will be the Continental Representative of Africa.
Time will tell…shortly.
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