For Olympic Swimmer Anthony Ervin Voyage Of Self Discovery Is A Long Strange Trip

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The words from the Grateful Dead song, “Truckin,” are quoted so frequently they almost have become a cliché.

Yet they still are perfect for certain situations.

And one such use is to sum up the picaresque journey of Anthony Ervin, whose first 35 years on earth have indeed been, as the song goes, “a long, strange, trip.”

That’s in all senses of the word “trip,” as Ervin makes abundantly clear in his compelling, sometimes stream-of-conscious new memoir, “Chasing Water.”

The book’s subtitle is “Elegy of an Olympian.”

An elegy is a lament.

But the place in which Ervin finds himself now – and in the final pages of the book, which takes him through 2012 – is something to celebrate.

And so what if Ervin has no idea what the next step will be after he swims in the 2016 Olympics. After all, this is a guy who says, “I have no home other than where I rest my head.”

The future will likely be another episode on his personal discovery channel.

“Self-acceptance and self-knowledge is continually what living is for me,” he said.

Forget trying to figure out his identity from the labels that have been pinned on him for his heritage, age, years of rebellious and often self-destructive behavior, shoulder-to-wrist tattoos on both arms and ability to cut through the water like a knife. To all that, Ervin responds with the title of an Arctic Monkeys album: “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.”

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In 30 minutes, signs of changing times for Ledecky, Franklin

OMAHA, Neb. - Missy Franklin finished swimming at the CenturyLink Center at 7:07 Saturday night. At 7:37, Katie Ledecky was in the water, taking over for good the pool that had belonged to Franklin four years ago.

In a sport ruled by times, 30 minutes provided a time passage through four years. The half-hour marked a transition from the era when Franklin was the leading figure in U.S. women’s swimming and its pre-Olympic designated star to the one when Ledecky is the leading figure in world women’s swimming and its pre-Olympic designated star.

Ledecky, 19, would cruise to victories in three freestyle races at these U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Swimming, adding Saturday night’s win in the 800-meter freestyle to those in the 200 and 400.

Franklin, 21, had won two individual events and qualified for four in 2012. This time, she clawed her way on the team going to Rio by rallying for second-place finishes in the 200 backstroke and 200 freestyle.

She replaced dominance with desire, battling to reclaim part of what had seemed so easy to get the first time.

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For Phelps & Lochte, another matchless episode of long-running hit

    Gonna take a sentimental journey
 
    Gonna set my heart at ease
 
    Gonna make a sentimental journey
 
    To renew old memories
 
           -- From the classic 1945 No. 1 hit song, “Sentimental Journey”

OMAHA, Neb. – They should have cleared everyone else out of the pool, leaving Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte in a match race, because that is what Friday night’s final of the 200-meter individual medley at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Swimming turned out to be.

Again.

No one expected anything else from the two men who have battled each other for global supremacy in the event over 13 years, creating the greatest rivalry in the history of their sport.

And the two 31-year-olds now have a chance to do it one more time at the 2016 Olympics next month in Rio.

“It isn’t over,” Lochte said. “We’ve still got another month to put everything together and really give the world a show.”

There never has been a longer-running hit in the sport.

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