More than 20 U.S. Olympians, including Olympic gold medalists Michael Phelps (Baltimore, Md.) and Ryan Lochte (Daytona Beach, Calif.), will compete at the Swimnetwork.com Santa Clara International Grand Prix, June 11-14 in Santa Clara, Calif. The meet is the final stop of the USA Swimming Grand Prix Series and the last major U.S. meet before the 2009 ConocoPhillips USA Swimming National Championships next month.
The top medal-winner at the Grand Prix Series will be awarded $20,000 at the end of the meet, courtesy of USA Swimming. Swimmers are awarded five points for a gold medal, three points for a silver medal and one point for a bronze medal. National Teamer and current Grand Prix Series leader Mary DeScenza (Naperville, Ill.) will look to take the prize home in Santa Clara. The leaderboard can be found online at www.usaswimming.org/grandprix.
Other top U.S. swimmers expected to compete in Santa Clara include Olympians Katie Hoff (Towson, Md.), Margaret Hoelzer (Huntsville, Ala.), Scott Spann (Austin, Texas), Kara Lynn Joyce (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Matt Grevers (Lake Forest, Ill.), Allison Schmitt (Canton, Mich.), Elizabeth Beisel (Saunderstown, R.I.), Lacey Nymeyer (Tucson, Ariz.) and Kathleen Hersey (Atlanta, Ga.).
In addition to the U.S. Olympians expected to compete, a strong international field is slated to be on deck. More than 30 swimmers from Australia, including gold medalists Stephanie Rice and Leisel Jones, and silver medalists Brenton Rickard and Hayden Stoeckel, will be at the meet. Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry and Canada’s Brent Hayden will also join the list of international competitors.
The star-studded field will also include U.S. Olympians with Bay Area ties such as Stanford swimmers Elaine Breeden (Lexington, Ky.) and Julia Smit (Mt. Sinai, NY), and Cal Berkeley swimmers Nathan Adrian (Bremerton, Wash.) and Dana Vollmer (Granbury, Texas).
The competition will follow the traditional meet schedule of morning prelims and evening finals. The full competition schedule can be found online. Finals begin at 4 p.m. PT on Thursday and at 5 p.m. PT, Friday through Sunday. Prelims begin at 9 a.m. PT, Friday through Sunday. Tickets for the meet can be purchased online through the Santa Clara Swim Club website.
Competition footage from the meet the will be broadcast by both Universal Sports and Swimnetwork.com. Universal Sports will air footage from the finals Friday, June 12 through Sunday, June 14 on its digital cable channel. Swimnetwork.com will provide a LIVE online stream of the Universal Sports broadcast. In addition, Swimnetwork.com will webcast the finals on Thursday, June 11, and the prelims from each day of competition.