As predicted, the 800 freestyle races in Mission Viejo were quite exciting, but for a different reason than expected. Both the Japan Olympic Team and U.S. swimmers clearly came to swim fast despite the fact that they are in a very intense training phase.

Masato Hirano (Japan) and Ocean States Squids swimmer Erik Vendt battled it out the entire race rarely being more than four tenths of a second apart from each other. Both swimmers nearly even split the race with Hirano finishing first and breaking a nine year old Japan National record by almost three seconds in 8:01.88 with Vendt just two tenths of a second behind in 8:02.07. Mission Viejos