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CONTENTS 008 THOMAS HEILMAN A RISING STAR AFTER NATIONAL AGE GROUP RECORD BLITZ by David Rieder Competing on back-to-back weekends in Greensboro, N.C., 14-year-old Thomas Heilman took down long course national age group records in four events at the U.S. Open, and shortly after, he broke NAG marks in four short course yards events. 010 TOP 10 SWIM MEETS TO WATCH IN 2022: WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS HIGHLIGHT BUSY CALENDAR by David Rieder This shortened “quadrennium” that leads up to the 2024 Paris Olympics kicks off with a lot of chances for veterans and newcomers alike to show their abilities on big stages. Here are 10 competitions to focus on in 2022. 014 ISL MALE SWIMMER OF THE YEAR: ILYA SHYMANOVICH by David Rieder During the 2020 ISL season, Ilya Shymanovich captured six breaststroke victories, although he was somewhat overshadowed by superstar Adam Peaty in his best events. But in 2021, Shymanovich took advantage of Peaty’s absence to become the premier performer in his events, racing to 16 breaststroke wins and two world records. 015 ISL FEMALE SWIMMER OF THE YEAR: SARAH SJOSTROM by Dan D’Addona After an elbow injury prevented Sarah Sjostrom from displaying her dominance at the Tokyo Olympics, she showed just how good she is during the ISL season when healthy. The Swedish swimming sensation was the MVP of the ISL finals, MVP of the entire season, and she led her Energy Standard team to the ISL championship. 016 WOMEN’S ISL PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR: KELSI DAHLIA BREAKS 100 FLY WORLD RECORD by David Rieder In the years following the 2016 Olympics, Kelsi Dahlia became the top American swimmer in the 100 butterfly, but in 2021, she just missed making the U.S. Olympic team. However, she bounced back with a dominant ISL season, finishing with the swim that was selected as the ISL Performance of the Year: a 54.59 SCM 100 fly, clipping Sarah Sjostrom’s 2014 world record by 2-hundredths. 017 MEN’S ISL PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR: COLEMAN STEWART DROPS STUNNING 100 BACK WORLD RECORD by David Rieder At the start of the 2021 ISL season, many of the world’s top swimmers were just easing back into competition following the Olympics. Not so for Coleman Stewart, who had placed 10th in the 100 backstroke at the U.S. Trials. In his first match racing for the Cali Condors, Stewart unleashed a 48.33 in the SCM 100 back, taking down Kliment Kolesnikov’s world record of 48.58.
SWIMMING WORLD BIWEEKLY JANUARY 2022 | ISSUE 01 022 DONNA DE VARONA: TRANSGENDER SWIMMING DIALOGUE MUST CONTINUE— “IT’S COMPLICATED AND PEOPLE DON’T LIKE COMPLICATED” by Dan D’Addona After years of advocating for women in sports and backing the landmark Title IX policy, Olympic gold medalist Donna de Varona believes that research and dialogue is what is needed to come up with solutions regarding Lia Thomas and the transgender situation, suggesting that dialogues need to be led by groups such as the NCAA, USA Swimming, the IOC and FINA. 024 A COLLEGE SWIMMING PLAYOFF? WHAT ABOUT THIS APPROACH FOR THE FUTURE? by Cooper VanDriessche Creating a new competitive approach for college swimming could open up doors for a sport that is sometimes only watched every four years by the general public. The author offers ideas that could make college swimming more marketable. 026 THE ESSENCE OF COLLEGE RECRUITING: THE SALESMAN by Noah Mitchell While college coaches must design a program and train their athletes, their careers flourish or wilt under their ability to recruit. In essence, a coach must be a true salesperson, one who creates the product they are selling. 028 “I WOULD DO IT AGAIN”: ARIZONA STATE BACK STRONGER OFF TEAM REDSHIRT YEAR by Matthew De George The Sun Devils made headlines in the summer of 2020 when Coach Bob Bowman announced that the program would redshirt its swimmers for the season, which at that point was in doubt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As they’ve returned to competition this fall, there are no regrets to that decision. 030 ISL EXPERIENCE PROVES KATERINE SAVARD HAS MORE TO GIVE AT 28 by Matthew De George Canada’s Katerine Savard wasn’t sure if she’d ever see her times from the early 2010s again, not in her late 20s. So when she rolled back the years in the ISL playoffs with the Cali Condors, she was surprised in the best kind of way, turning in best times in 10 years. 032 HOW THEY TRAIN EMMA WEYANT by Michael J. Stott
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020 GUEST EDITORIAL: IN DEFENSE OF LIA THOMAS AND HER RIGHT TO COMPETE by Lucas Draper In this commentary, the author believes transgender swimmer Lia Thomas does not deserve to be the target of a media frenzy about whether she should be allowed to compete as who she is. Instead, since she is following the rules set out by the NCAA, she has every right to compete as an athlete in the female gender.
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018 IS COLLEGE SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON IN JEOPARDY AS COVID CASES RISE? by David Rieder After 2021 concluded with a Short Course World Championships marred by COVID-19, the new year has already seen the surging pandemic affect numerous competitions. A string of canceled meets has been both disappointing and ominous, and if the current trends continue, the college conference meets in February and NCAA Championships in March could be in danger.
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were just tenths off the standard required to score points at the 2021 NCAA Championships.
[ Photo by Lisa Martin ]
Heilman’s yards campaign got underway the day after the U.S. Open ended, when he swam a 43.51 in the 100 free at a YMCA meet in Cary. Then, he returned to Greensboro to barely miss Andrew’s 50 free NAG record (19.83, just off Andrew’s 19.76) and then destroy records in the 100 fly (45.81), 200 free (1:34.68) and 200 fly (1:42.77). He finished more than a second under Andrew’s previous record in the 100 fly and more than two seconds faster than the previous best mark in both of his 200-yard races. Obviously, all of those performances crushed Heilman’s own lifetime bests by even greater margins. He shocked the country with his times, but Heilman surprised himself only a little bit compared to his own expectations.
Thomas Heilman A Rising Star After National Age Group Record Blitz by David Rieder
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ver a 10-day stretch of racing, Thomas Heilman threatened a record every time he dove into the pool. Heilman, 14, had made his debut racing against the best swimmers in the country one year earlier at the multi-site U.S. Open, but he became a headliner for the first time this year. Competing on back-to-back weekends in Greensboro, N.C., Heilman took down long course National Age Group records in four events at the U.S. Open, and shortly after, he broke NAG marks in four short course yards events. “It was a really cool experience,” Heilman said. “I had a lot of fun at the two meets with all my teammates, and it was a lot of fun meeting and then racing against people from other teams, kind of getting to know some of them.” At the U.S. Open, Heilman swam records in the 50 free (22.95), 100 fly (53.27), 200 free (1:51.27) and 100 free (51.12). Most impressive was his 100 fly, where his finals time made him 1.2 seconds faster than the second-fastest 1314 boy in U.S. history, future Olympian Michael Andrew. It was also the first time Heilman surpassed a Wave II cut for this past summer’s Olympic Trials. Then, in the 200 fly, Heilman recorded a time of 1:59.87, less than a second off the age-group record held by the great Michael Phelps. Those long course times were eye-opening, stamping Heilman’s name into the mind of swimming fans as a name to closely watch as he continues to grow and improve. But his efforts in short course a few days later were arguably more impressive as Heilman swam times in multiple events that 8
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“I definitely had goals to be near those record times, but I even went a little past my goal times, so in that sense it was a little unexpected,” he said. “It was kind of in the ballpark of my goal times.” Heilman stands six-feet-two-inches tall, but he is just a freshman in high school. He swims just six practices per week (all in the morning with no doubles), and his new coach is Gary Taylor, the former Auburn head coach who became head coach at Cavalier Aquatics this season. Among those in the training group is Heilman’s older brother, Matthew, a senior in high school who is still considering his options for college swimming. “He’s more of a breaststroker, so we don’t necessarily bang heads in practice, but when we swim IM, we do race sometimes, so it can get a little competitive,” Thomas said. Right now, it’s all working perfectly as Thomas is having about as much success in the pool as possible, crushing his lifetime bests and breaking records almost every time out. Competing at these national-level meets has allowed Heilman to meet competitors from all over the country, which he calls his favorite part of swimming (while Heilman said his least favorite part is getting up early for morning practice). He even got to chat with Olympic medalists Bobby Finke and Bruno Fratus at the U.S. Open, along with top junior-level swimmers like Baylor Nelson at Junior Nationals. “Everybody I met was really cool. Really good talking to them,” Heilman said. He paraphrased some advice he got from former Michigan swimmer Gus Borges at the U.S. Open: “They remember the person, not the player. People are going to remember who you are as a person before they remember what you did in the pool.” Heilman wants to take those words to heart and act with poise as he is rapidly improving in the pool and making his mark on the national level. ◄
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[ Photo by Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto]
>> Maggie MacNeil
Top 10 Swim Meets to Watch in 2022: World Championships Highlight Busy Calendar by David Rieder
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ne year after international swimming competition returned with an exciting Tokyo Olympics, the year 2022 will be an especially busy one on swimming’s calendar. That’s because the calendar was shifted to accomodate the rescheduled Olympics, with the FINA World Championships pushed back one year. But this year’s Worlds will be held in May, while the rest of the summer will feature regional competitions that typically highlight the even years between Olympics. This shortened “quadrennium” that leads up to the 2024 Paris Olympics kicks off with a lot of chances for veterans and newcomers alike to show their abilities on big stages. Here are the 10 competitions to keep an eye out for this year.
1. Women’s NCAA Championships, March 16-19 — Atlanta
This year’s college championship season should be an exciting one as the defending-champion Virginia Cavaliers face off against the team that won the three prior national championship meets, Stanford. Virginia’s roster will include three swimmers who won individual medals at the Tokyo Olympics, Alex Walsh, Kate Douglass and Emma Weyant, while Stanford adds three Tokyo medalists from last year’s 10
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group (Regan Smith, Torri Huske and Taylor Ruck) to its squad led by fifth-year senior Brooke Forde. Expect an intense dual between those two squads. Michigan senior’s Maggie MacNeil, the Olympic and world champion in the 100-meter butterfly and the fastest swimmer ever in the 100yard butterfly, will look to conclude her college career in fine style while U.S. Olympians such as Rhyan White, Phoebe Bacon and Erica Sullivan should all be in contention for individual titles. Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas figures to enter NCAAs among the favorites in the mid-distance and distance freestyle events.
2. Men’s NCAA Championships, March 23-26 — Atlanta
One week after the women’s meet, the men’s NCAA Championships should be a Texas Longhorns show. Olympian Drew Kibler and Short Course World Championships medalist Carson Foster lead a group stacked with talent in virtually every event except the butterflys (including Caspar Corbeau, Danny Krueger, Carson’s older brother Jake Foster and emerging swimmers like Cameron Auchinachie). But the California Golden Bears never go down without a fight, and they will look to continue their streak of top-two finishes which goes back to 2010. Florida will have a pair of stars
3. Australian Swimming Championships, April 4-9 — Adelaide, South Australia
The World Championships qualification meets will kick off in full force in April, and Australia’s meet is always a big one, particularly following Australia’s resurgent performance at the Tokyo Olympics. Expect to see all three of Australia’s double individual gold medalists >> Ariarne Titmus from Tokyo, sprinter Emma McKeon, middistance star Ariarne Titmus and backstroker Kaylee McKeown, in action, and we will get a young swimmers will be eager to fill their spots and take away chance at this meet to see how Australia’s team medals. Expect to see individual Olympic champion from is looking for the first post-Tokyo global championships. A Tokyo competing in Fukuoka. And if you need a reminder of lot can change over the course of a three-year stretch between the importance of the post-Olympic World Championships, Tokyo and Paris, and this will be the first chance to assess the remember this: the 2017 World Championships saw Caeleb strengths and weaknesses of the Aussie team. Dressel emerge as a star for the first time as he won seven gold medals, while future Australian stars Ariarne Titmus and Kaylee McKeown both earned fourth-place finishes in 4. USA Swimming International Team Trials, individual events in the first major international meet of their April 26-30 — Greensboro, N.C. careers. The past four quads have seen the first major U.S. squads selected at Nationals in Indianapolis, but this year sees a change as a major selection meet heads to Greensboro for 6. Commonwealth Games, July 29-August 3 the first time. The U.S. stars of the Tokyo Olympics figure (swimming) — Birmingham, England to be back in action, from five-time gold medalist Caeleb The World Championships will not be the lswimast major Dressel to the legendary Katie Ledecky and many more. meet of the year for most of the world’s elite swimmers, and No top Americans have declared their intention to retire or the stretch of the late-summer championships kicks off with to skip the 2022 championship season, so we should expect the Commonwealth Games in England. This meet features most familiar faces to be in town. We will also see plenty of swimmers from the Commonwealth nations of England, college-aged swimmers trying to break onto the No. 1 U.S. Scotland, Wales, Australia, Canada, South Africa and more. squad for the first time as the new Olympic cycle begins. Three swimmers per country can race in each event, leaving USA Swimming’s non-Olympic selection meets follow a open the possibility for one country (typically Australia) five-day, prelims-finals only format, unlike the eight-day to sweep all three podium spots. Note that Great Britain Olympic Trials which include semifinals, so this one will go competes as three different nations here, so Duncan Scott by quicker with the World Championships set to follow less will represent Scotland while Adam Peaty, Tom Dean and than a month later. most other big-name British swimmers swim for England.
5. FINA World Championships, May 22-29 — Fukuoka, Japan
Make no mistake, this is the big one for 2022. The best swimmers in the world will gather for an eight-day showcase, the stakes slightly lowered from the Olympics but still with valuable World Championships hardware on the line. Legacies are made at the Olympics, but in the grand scheme of swimming, World Championship honors matter, too. So this will be the first chance to see how all of the world’s top swimmers stack up in this new quad leading up to Paris. Some veterans may be a little off in the post-Olympic year as they begin a slow build-up toward the next Games, while plenty of
7. European Championships, August 11-17 (swimming) — Rome
The best swimmers in Europe will race at the Foro Italico, the iconic outdoor venue that hosted the 1994 and 2009 World Championships. Europe’s top men’s swimmers were dominant at the Olympics, with Russian and Italian swimmers taking a notable step forward, while Europe’s women will be looking for a significant bounce-back this year after they won just four medals (none of them gold) in Tokyo. This is typically the most prestigious meet of the summer for European swimmers in the middle year of the quad, but CONTINUED >>
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[ Photo by Delly Carr/Swimming Australia ]
in U.S. Olympic medalists Kieran Smith and Bobby Finke, and those two figure to give the American record books a real shake.
because of the World Championships happening just a few months before, we’ll see if any of the top swimmers on the continent choose to skip this meet or perhaps swim off-events. The participation of top British swimmers is especially questionable since they will have already raced at both the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games before the European meet.
[ Photo by Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto]
8. Asian Games, September 11-16 (swimming) — Hangzhou, China
>> Siobhan Haughey
This is typically a significant championship affair for the top swimmers in Asia, so we should expect top swimmers from China and Japan to highlight the Asian Games along with stars such as Siobhan Haughey of Hong Kong and Hwang Sunwoo of South Korea. China’s swimmers, in particular, tend to excel while racing in home waters, so this could be a huge meet for that squad. Tokyo gold medalists Zhang Yufei and Wang Shun of China and Yui Ohashi of Japan should be expected to compete, along with star Japanese IMer Daiya Seto. We should also expect to see Rikako Ikee back in top form by this point following her battle with leukemia. She could win an individual medal at the World Championships, but she may star at the Asian Games after she captured six gold medals at the 2018 edition of the meet.
9. FINA Short Course World Championships, December 17-22 — Kazan, Russia
For the first time ever, FINA will hold its signature World Championships featuring all aquatic sports and the Short Course World Championships in the same year. Short Course Worlds will also be held in back-to-back years for the first time since 1999 and 2000. As we saw with the recent edition of Short Course Worlds in Abu Dhabi, the top swimmers in the world do not always show up for this meet, but we should see a greater turnout than we did in 2021 in the immediate aftermath of the Olympics. Siobhan Haughey, Maggie MacNeil and Florian Wellbrock all set individual world records at the 2021 edition of the event.
10. International Swimming League, TBD
The ISL has announced plans to return for a fourth season in 2022, but it is unclear when and where that will take place. We might not know details for a while as the league only announced the location and date for the 2021 final about one month in advance. Energy Standard captured the 2021 league title in a close final against the Cali Condors, and Cali will certainly be out for revenge in 2022, while the league will be looking for some parity after the same four squads (Energy, Cali, London Roar and LA Current) have qualified for the final in each of the league’s first three seasons. The ISL is still looking for some stability, but it has been an exciting edition to swimming’s calendar over the past three years for both athletes and fans. ◄ 12
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[ Photo by Giorgio Scala/ Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto]
ISL Male Swimmer of the Year: Ilya Shymanovich by David Rieder
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uring the 2020 ISL season, Ilya Shymanovich captured six breaststroke victories, although he was somewhat overshadowed by superstar Adam Peaty in his best events. But in 2021, Shymanovich took advantage of Peaty’s absence to become the premier performer in his events for the duration of the season. Shymanovich entered the ISL campaign coming off his bestever long course season, when he represented Belarus in his first Olympic final in the 100 breaststroke, and then he won 16 individual races over the course of the season and also provided a huge medley relay boost for his Energy Standard teammates. Shymanovich did not perform at his best during the ISL final, but he ended the season as the top-scoring male swimmer in the league and the third-highest-scoring individual as Energy reclaimed the league title. Shymanovich won the 50 breaststroke five times over the course of the season, and he recorded the league’s fastest time of the year with a 25.41. He actually tied the existing world record in the event at 25.25, but that happened during the European Short Course Championships the week before the ISL playoffs began. In the 100 breast, Shymanovich won on six occasions. In the second and third playoff matches, Shymanovich lowered the world record in the event. Shymanovich owned the world record already at 55.34 before he swam a time of 55.32. A week later, he was even quicker with a 55.28. Shymanovich was so dominant in the sprint events that he jackpotted six of his seven competitors on multiple occasions. Whenever Aqua Centurions and Cali Condors were not in
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the match, Shymanovich and teammate Felipe Lima could finish 1-2 and score 37 points for Energy Standard, compared to zero for all other teams. There was a bit of controversy surrounding Shymanovich as some questioned the legality of his narrow breaststroke kick, but he was never disqualified. And while Shymanovich is certainly best in the sprint breaststroke events, he was pretty brilliant this year in the 200 breast as well. He recorded five wins in that event, and his 2:02.06 was the league’s fastest time all year. However, the ISL Grand Final did not go as planned for Shymanovich as Cali’s Nic Fink edged him out in all three breaststroke events. Fink beat Shymanovich by three hundredths in the 200 breast, nine hundredths in the 50 breast and then three hundredths again in the 100 breast. Even though Shymanovich could not pick up any individual wins, he missed a sweep of his events by a combined three hundredths. But one off performance does not define a season, and looking at the season as a whole, Shymanovich was certainly the top male swimmer. The 27-year-old concluded the year by claiming a gold medal in the 100 breaststroke at the Short Course World Championships, his first-ever international gold medal. Shymanovich might have an unconventional stroke, but he utilizes his incredible upper-body strength to great effect in short course breaststroke. And while he did not swim his best at the biggest meets this season, his consistently-quick efforts provided a huge boost to Energy Standard. We’ll see if Shymanovich can translate that short course success to the long course pool, but he has at the very least established himself as elite in the 25-meter format. ◄
[ Photo by Giorgio Scala/ Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto]
ISL Female Swimmer of the Year: Sarah Sjostrom
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by Dan D'Addona
arah Sjostrom is back. The Swedish swimming sensation put together the top International Swimming League (ISL) performance of the year, proving that when healthy, she is one of the world’s dominant female forces in the pool. After an elbow injury didn’t allow that dominant force to be unleashed in full at the Tokyo Olympics, Sjostrom proved what a healthy force can do in the International Swimming League (ISL) finals. Sjostrom was the MVP of the finals with 61 points and was also the ISL MVP of the entire season with 511.5 points, leading Energy Standard to the ISL championship for the second time in the three years of the league. Energy Standard needed every one of those points as the team scored 534 to hold off the Cali Condors (522) in the finals. But this meet was so much more for Sjostrom’s ever-growing legacy. In the Tokyo Olympics, she was overshadowed by the Australian trio of Emma McKeon, Kaylee McKeown and Ariarne Titmus, South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmacher as well as American Katie Ledecky, Canada’s Maggie MacNeil, Japan’s Yui Ohashi , China’s Zhang Yufei and Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey. Sjostrom is used to being at the top of this growing group, not overshadowed by so many. But the elbow injury came at the worst time for the Swedish star, especially after the Olympics were postponed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. How many medals would she have
won if the Games were a year earlier? She was still easily selected as Swimming World’s European Female Swimmer of the Year, but she had to manage expectations on the way to winning the silver medal in the 50 free. That medal had a deeper meaning to Sjostrom after all she had been through. She showed her emotion after finally earning a medal on the final night of the games. Fast forward a couple of months after Tokyo and a healthy Sjostrom proved she is still capable of being the world’s best even just months after a major injury. In the ISL final, Sjostrom won the 50 freestyle in 23.27, just a couple of tenths off of her ISL record in the event — and just about a half hour after racing the 100 butterfly, where she was fourth. On the second day, Sjostrom finished second (51.26) in the 100 freestyle to teammate Haughey (50.79), who broke her own league record and Asian record in the race, then got second in the 50 butterfly 24.87, just three tenths off the league record, about 45 minutes after her first race. Sjostrom wasn’t out there winning every race she was in. But she was up against the best of each stroke, and her versatility once again proved that she belongs in the top group of sprinters, butterflyers and relay swimmers in the world, a group very few swimmers belong. That is what makes an MVP — and that is what has proved to the world that Sarah Sjostrom is truly back. ◄ BIWEEKLY
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deny that.” Of course, Dahlia was still disappointed to not have finished in the top-two, but realizing that “Torri and Claire were the best people for our country” and that her performances at the meet really had been strong provided some solace. Then, she got her own chance to shine a few months later during the International Swimming League season, where she would again represent the Cali Condors.
[ Photo by Mine Kasapoglu / ISL]
Following Trials, Dahlia needed a reset, so she returned to the pool by swimming outdoors with her husband, former French national teamer Thomas Dahlia. She called that experience “really therapeutic,” and she found herself enjoying being in the water again. When she returned to regular training at Louisville, she began spending more time in the sprint group, and she swam only one practice per day. Dahlia explained that her no-doubles approach allowed her to push harder in the weight room and make significant strength gains there.
Women’s ISL Performance of the Year: Kelsi Dahlia Breaks 100 Fly World Record by David Rieder
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n the years following the 2016 Olympics, Kelsi Dahlia became the top American swimmer in the 100 butterfly. She won bronze in the event at the 2017 World Championships, silver at the 2018 Pan Pacific Championships and gold at the 2018 Short Course World Championships. She was part of two world-record-setting U.S. women’s 400 medley relays, at the 2017 and 2019 Worlds. But in 2021, Dahlia found herself off the team this time as teenagers Torri Huske and Claire Curzan went 1-2. Both swam faster times than Dahlia had ever recorded, and Huske took down the American record. Dahlia, who recorded her fastest time in four years with a 56.56 in prelims, ended up fourth in the final. Perhaps surprisingly, Dahlia’s immediate reaction to the result was not a feeling of piercing anguish. Instead, she felt mostly relief. The long build-up to the critical moment had weighed on Dahlia, including during the one-year delay of the Olympics. “I was just glad it was done, even though it wasn’t the result that I had hoped for,” Dahlia said. “As hard as I was trying to not [put pressure on myself], it was still there, and I couldn’t
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Dahlia had excelled during her college days at Louisville thanks to her powerful underwater dolphin kicks, and those skills were again on display in the short course meters format of the ISL as she recorded 17 wins spanning all three butterfly races and 50-meter butterfly skins. Six of those wins came in the 100 fly, where she lost only once all year. In her second of three playoff matches, she won the event in 54.89, just five hundredths off her American record of 54.84 and less than three tenths from Sarah Sjostrom’s world record of 54.61. With that performance, Dahlia realized that she could break the world record in the final, but she wanted to keep her attention elsewhere in the days leading up to the race. “Whenever I focus on the time, it typically doesn’t happen, so I’m just trying to focus on my race strategy and staying relaxed,” Dahlia said. In the ISL final, Dahlia faced off against a field that included Sjostrom as well as Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Emma McKeon, but on that particular day, neither was any match for the American on this day. She went out in 25.85, a tenth under Sjostrom’s world-record pace (25.96). McKeon was just a tenth behind at that point, but Dahlia exploded off the walls and pulled away on the second 50. Dahlia finished in 54.59, clipping Sjostrom’s 2014 world record by two hundredths. McKeon finished second, more than a second behind, while Sjostrom ended up almost a second-and-a-half adrift. “It’s so surreal. I don’t think it will hit me for a bit. It’s really special,” Dahlia said in an on-deck interview after the race. “That was an amazing heat. They were all great competitors. I was just sticking to my race plan. I wanted to get the match off to a great start for the Condors.” ◄
[ Photo by Giorgio Scala/ Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto]
then held on to finish in 48.33, taking down Kolesnikov’s world record of 48.58. It was the first world record of Stewart’s career, and he finished more than two seconds ahead of the field. Stewart’s reaction to the record was “complete shock.” He had been preparing to swim fast during the ISL season, but he had taken a break after Olympic Trials, so he never expected to swim so fast so soon. “Short course meters is kind of my bread-and-butter, just because I kick off the wall a lot,” Stewart said after the race. “It’s a little different than short course yards, but I’m glad to be back my wheelhouse. It was pretty cool to get that record.” Superstar Caeleb Dressel, Stewart’s teammate on the Condors, chimed in to explain the significance of his teammate’s accomplishment.
Men’s ISL Performance of the Year: Coleman Stewart Drops Stunning 100 Back World Record
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by David Rieder
t the start of the 2021 ISL season, many of the world’s top swimmers were just easing back into competition following the Olympic Games, so exceptional times were not expected during the first several matches or perhaps even at all during the regular season. But Coleman Stewart, a 23-year-old from York, Pa., and a former standout at NC State University, showed up to compete right off the bat. Stewart had narrowly missed the U.S. Olympic team, finishing eighth in the 100 freestyle and fourth in the 100 butterfly at the U.S. Olympic Trials. He finished just 10th in the 100 backstroke at Trials, but Stewart has always been elite in short course backstroke. Stewart’s underwater dolphin kick is a powerful weapon, and in short course, he can spend more than half of the race kicking underwater. Racing for the Cali Condors, Stewart got off to a hot start in his team’s first match. During the first day, he nearly broke the American record in the 50 back, and then, while leading off Cali’s 400 medley relay. he clipped one hundredth off Matt Grevers’ national mark in the 100 back with a 48.91. It turns out that was just a warmup for what Stewart had in store when he arrived for his first race on day two. In the individual 100 back event, Stewart blasted out to a 23.45 first 50 split, more than four tenths ahead of Kliment Kolesnikov’s world-record pace. Stewart
“This is the fastest person in history for a moment of this sport,” Dressel said. “This is a very big deal, and to do it in the first meet after coming off of Trials, where the goal of Olympic Trials is to make the team, there’s probably a little bit of a downfall there. And to take a break and get back in your groove that quick, it just speaks volumes to this team.” Stewart ended up winning both the 50 and 100 back twice more during the regular season, and he also picked up an individual win in the 200 back, but he did not approach that record-setting form again. In the final match of the ISL playoffs, Stewart actually ended up fourth in 50.46, more than two seconds off his world record from three months earlier, but he returned much closer to top form in time for the ISL final. In the biggest meet of the ISL season, Stewart faced off against Olympic gold medalist Evgeny Rylov and long course worldrecord holder Ryan Murphy, and he came away with a secondplace finish, only two tenths behind Rylov. His time of 49.13 was well off his world record, but it was quicker than the winning time at the Short Course World Championships two weeks later. Heading into 2022, he is still unproven in long course, but there is no doubt that Coleman Stewart is one of the best short course backstrokers in the world. ◄
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Is College Swimming Championship Season in Jeopardy as COVID Cases Rise? by David Rieder
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fter 2021 concluded with a Short Course World Championships marred by COVID-19, the new year has already seen the surging pandemic affect numerous competitions. Thanks to the more contagious Omicron variant that has made COVID cases in the United States and globally rise quickly, at least four college dual meets scheduled for this weekend have already been called off. The first TYR Pro Swim Series meet of 2022, scheduled for January 12-15 in Knoxville, Tenn., was canceled as USA Swimming sought to “prioritize the health and safety of the athletes, staff and event volunteers.”
non-participants for social distancing purposes. Last year’s circumstances were not ideal, but at least the season concluded. One year earlier in 2020, swimming fans never got to see Abbey Weitzeil finish off her college career for Cal or watch the anticipated Maggie Mac Neil vs. Louise Hansson vs. Erika Brown showdown in the 100 fly at NCAAs. Short course stars like Beata Nelson and Coleman Stewart did not get one last shot at records in the 25-yard pool.
It’s not March 2020, when the beginning of the pandemic saw the world essentially shut down in a matter of days, but the string of cancellations is both disappointing and ominous. And if the current trends continue, the conference championship meets in February and NCAA Championships in March could be in danger.
And most significantly, 2020 was utterly heartbreaking for the seniors slated to swim at NCAAs who instead saw their swimming careers end with a press release. While the NCAA promised an extra year of eligibility to all swimmers who competed during the 2020-21 season, no such promise was made for winter 2020 athletes. So unless a swimmer had professional aspirations, that was it.
Swimming is certainly not alone among sports that have COVID wreaking havoc on planned competitions. Among the most recent pandemic-related news, this week’s U.S. Olympic Speedskating Trials will be held with no fans in attendance, while the National Hockey League withdrew its players from next month’s Winter Olympics because of COVID concerns. Game schedules for college basketball are in constant flux as teams are forced to pause their season with too many players in COVID protocols.
Obviously, cancellation is the worst-case scenario for conference meets and NCAAs this year, and hopefully it does not come to that. It’s still the beginning of January, and trends from overseas show that with Omicron, case numbers tend to rise sharply and peak quickly before falling, so hopefully this spike will start to abate by next month. Missing training time or even dual meets is not ideal, but every swimmer would prefer that to having their championship season derailed, either by a canceled meet or a positive test.
In swimming, absolutely no one is happy about the postponements and cancellations. Swimmers want to be able to practice and compete, and coaches want to see their athletes finish their seasons at their best without significant training interruptions. Family and friends want to see their loved ones have the opportunity to race at their conference meets and potentially national meets.
Some coaches planned contingencies in case the 2021 NCAA Championships were canceled to give their swimmers a championship meet, and some may have to think back to those old plans just in case. But in the meantime, the entire swimming community is crossing its fingers that this ongoing COVID surge will have calmed down enough by February and March to allow the exciting finale of conference championship meets and NCAAs to take place with as little disruption from the pandemic as possible. ◄
Even swimming writers hate to see cancellations; there is no cheering in the press box during competition, but everyone at Swimming World is rooting hard for as normal of a college swimming championship season as possible after the 2020 NCAAs were canceled and the 2021 meet was closed to all 18
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All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.
[ Photo by NCAA Media]
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Guest Editorial: In Defense Of Lia Thomas and Her Right to Compete by Lucas Draper
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ia Thomas is an athlete at the top of her game. She works hard for everything that she has accomplished. And yet, now she finds herself stuck in the spotlight, the target of a media frenzy simply about whether she should be allowed to compete as who she is. Before I even begin to delve into the complex issue of transgender athlete participation in sports, I need to make it clear that Lia Thomas is a person first. No matter if you agree or disagree with whether she should be allowed to compete as a woman, she deserves some basic human decency. She is a woman, she uses she/her pronouns, and any reference to her otherwise is offensive. I, myself, am a transgender male and have been on hormone replacement therapy for two months, competing in the male gender. I very much acknowledge that in terms of public scrutiny, I made the ‘easier’ transition from female to male. I transitioned into what society deems the ‘stronger’ gender. Society will tell you that I put myself at a disadvantage by competing as who I am, but I do not see it that way. I finally feel like me after so many years. Lia Thomas experiences far more scrutiny over her physical form than I will ever have to deal with, and for that I say, Lia, I am so very sorry the world is being so mean to you. I hope people can come to see this isn’t about you and your identity as transgender. It’s about the larger policy, and people who are targetting you specifically need to understand that it is not your fault. You are being yourself, and since I don’t think enough people are telling you this right now, I am proud of
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you. I look up to you for being able to be strong in the face of what the world is throwing at you right now. Lia has faced enough media attention and does not deserve to be at the center of this issue. She has every right to compete as an athlete in the female gender. She is following the rules set out by the NCAA, and has jumped through the various hoops of medical and psychological testing they require, and for that, the attention should not be on her. Instead, I will present you with the facts of the decision by the NCAA, as well as newer research that should potentially be considered by the NCAA if it decides to revise these rules. I am also only going to focus on transgender females (sorry ladies) since they are the ones under the metaphorical microscope right now. The NCAA is a national body that does not make decisions lightly. Given the amount of paperwork and approvals I had to obtain, I can attest to this. In the NCAA publication entitled, “Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes” (ITSA), the organization lists 10 “guiding principles” on which their decisions are made in regards to transgender participation. Among this list, it states that “transgender athletes should have equal opportunity to participate in sports” and “the integrity of women’s sports should be preserved.” They also clearly state that “policies governing sports should be based on sound medical knowledge and scientific validity.” I am not going to pretend that I can change the opinions of
those that believe transgender females should not be allowed to compete in the female gender, but I do want to present to you the “sound medical knowledge” on which this decision was based. If one ventures down the ITSA document far enough, Appendix B presents a variety of sources on which this decision was based. I do not expect anyone to read those sources, so I shall provide you with the important notes from some of the most relevant pieces. You can go read the rest for yourself if you are so inclined. The ITSA document was written in 2011, based on sources ranging from 2004 to 2009. The fact of the matter is, at the time when the NCAA needed to make a decision, there was not enough data to be able to conclusively determine if hormone therapy would severely improve an athlete’s performance. So, based on the information they had available to them, the NCAA made a decision. Despite the document citing many different sources for its decision, when you take a deeper look, each paper references data from the same study. This study from 2004, conducted by VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, stated that the changes that “took place during the first year of the administration of cross-sex hormones (were no different than) when measured two years later.” It suggested that requiring transgender female athletes to wait two years to compete in their correct gender was unnecessary since no noticeable impact on performance had occurred during the second year. One paper prepared by Dr. Michaela Devries, referenced by the ITSA document, interprets the results of this study to suggest there is evidence that one year of hormone suppressants is enough to level the playing field. The paper analyzes multiple points of performance, such as hemoglobin levels (related to oxygen in the blood), which are all reduced to the same levels as those assigned female at birth. The main point of contention with transgender female athletes is their muscle mass. Non-supporters argue the muscle these athletes gained while identifying as male continues to impact their performance. However, this study suggests that is not the entire story. Dr. Devries states that “estrogen… decreased muscle cross-sectional area, however (this) was still greater” than those assigned female at birth. Dr. Devries goes on to state that, “although the average… was greater in transitioned women, there was a dramatic range in both cross-sectional groups.” Which presents the main reason transgender athletes should be allowed to participate in their chosen gender. There is a spectrum of physicalities for both those assigned male and female. At one end “physically born women have smaller muscle cross-sectional area, (and at the other end) muscle cross-sectional area was equal between transitioned women and physically born women.” This research suggests that we cannot simply look at a person’s gender and say ‘you will out perform her simply because she
is female and you were born male.’ It’s not fair. In saying that, there is more recent research coming from the Children’s Mercy Division of Adolescent Medicine, Kansas City, and the San Antonio Milliary Medical Center, Fort Sam, Texas in 2020 that suggests perhaps two years is not enough time for transgender women to wait. Researchers analyzed the number of pushups, situps, and the time taken to run a mile for transgender athletes, both transmale and transfemale, before and after two years of hormone replacement therapy to determine the effect of hormones on performance. They found that after two years, there was no difference in the number of pushups and situps performed in a minute by both cisgender and transgender women. However, the transgender women were on average still 12% faster in their mile times. We simply do not know the difference between skill and physicality. I have seen many races in my time where those assigned female at birth outswim those assigned male at birth, even when they have both received the same training. It happens all the time. So, why should transgender female athletes, who have gone through the process of hormone suppression be penalized, when the world of sports is so widely varied anyway? No transgender athlete wants to compete in their preferred gender simply because they could get an edge. We want to compete in that gender because that is how we truly identify. If you look at transgender women and get angry at them for competing, why do you not get angry at athletes with exceptional ability who identify with their sex assigned at birth? I wanted to take hormones long before I actually started treatment, and I finally changed my mind and started treatment because hearing “ladies step up” before the start of a race began to hurt just a bit too much. I go to every swim meet with a plastic pocket filled with every piece of medical documentation and letters I have received which allows me to compete as a man, just in case some official or opposing coach decides to question me. No transgender athletes should have to fear abuse for being who they are and for following the rules laid out for them. So Lia, if you are reading this, I know this is tough and you are just following the rules. I am so sorry the world is putting you at the face of this issue and I hope people can finally leave you alone, and talk about this more as an issue of transgender participation, not the world vs. Lia Thomas. Lucas Draper is a junior-year swimmer at Oberlin College. All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff. ◄ BIWEEKLY
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[ Photo by USOC / YouTube]
Donna de Varona: Transgender Swimming Dialogue Must Continue – ‘‘It’s Complicated and People Don’t Like Complicated’’
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by Dan D’Addona
onna de Varona competed in the pool when gender equality was far from becoming a reality.
After years of advocating for women in sports and backing the landmark Title IX policy, the Olympic gold medalist continues her fight for women’s equality today. The fight looks a little different this year and it involves transgender swimmer Lia Thomas at Penn. Thomas is a woman who has followed all of the NCAA rules and protocols with her transition, but it has left many wondering whether her competing with women a little more than a year after being part of the men’s team is fair to women’s sports. That is especially true of the generations of swimmers who grew up fighting — and continue to fight — for gender equality within the sport and society, like de Varona. “My personal feeling is that this isn’t about Lia as it is about not doing due diligence as to the impact any policy would have on this situation where biological males mitigate and want to enter the women’s sports category,” de Varona told Swimming World. “Those of us who fought for Title IX, it has been a war for a long time. We had to research and prove our point that we deserved to have an equal opportunity, not just to compete but to learn so many valuable tools from the foundation sports provides us. All of those role models have 22
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happened because of this law.” That research and dialogue is what is needed to come up with solutions to this situation, de Varona said. The dialogues need to be led by groups like the NCAA, USA Swimming, the IOC and FINA. “FINA has to look at this and deal with it now. We should all be working together. We are the pioneers of the sport and we have worked on Title IX, SafeSport, Civil Rights. We have been very protective of young athletes because it is the adults in the room who have to make these decisions. You have to see how this will impact the sport from the grassroots to the Olympics. Our motivation as pioneering athletes who fought through Title IX and lived through drug-fused dominance, needed to step in and open up the dialogue. There wasn’t a dialogue. It has begun and that is the most important thing,” she said. “That is why it is unfortunate that those who push for the NCAA policy did not do their due diligence to protect Lia, who has followed the guidelines that the NCAA has provided and is now part of a controversy. The adults in the room making decisions had to do more. “So what is the answer? It is complicated and people don’t want complicated.” Complicated because the issue affects different sports in
different ways. Complicated because every individual is different. Complicated because organizations want to be fair to all athletes. “One rule doesn’t accommodate everybody. That is why the IOC punted on their ruling. The IOC realized one size doesn’t fit all,” de Varona said. “Testosterone can’t be the only measure. There are so many other things to consider.” Donna de Varona joined the Women’s Sports Policy Working Group, along with former swimmer Nancy Hogshead Makar and athletes like tennis legend Martina Navratilova. The group was opposed to President Joe Biden’s executive order giving blanket inclusion for all transgender female athletes. One thing de Varona wanted to make perfectly clear was that she and the group were not opposed to inclusion, just that any blanket policy would not end up being fair and inclusive to all parties. Just like she is not opposed to Thomas being transgender or even being a swimmer, especially since she has followed all of the rules. It is about working to find the correct rules, she said, which takes time. “It depends on the sport,” de Varona said. “A sport like equestrian, it doesn’t matter the same way. Head to head competition (in swimming) with two years’ mitigation is not enough. It depends on when you started. If you competed as a male into your 20s, can you ever really mitigate your body? Two years is not enough. Has anyone asked those
questions? Did anyone prepare (Thomas) for what was going to happen? What are the values you learn from sport? Fairness. Team play. Opportunity. I don’t think Lia has had a good experience. I think it has been a very difficult road. Have we been fair to her?” Part of that was the quick reaction of people across social media. “It became so politicized. What you saw was anti-transgender (accusations), which is not what we are saying … our group has been supported by transgender athletes Renee Richards and Caitlyn Jenner) … Lia happened to be the lighting rod for the issue (in swimming),” de Varona said. “We have to protect people like Lia. I am not for demonizing Lia or her coach. They abided by the rules. NCAA has to speak up. USA Swimming has to speak up. FINA has to speak up. We have seen track and field try to find a solution. The voices are going to get louder and we have to find solutions. “Title IX says you can’t discriminate because of sex but it doesn’t say anything about gender identification. That doesn’t mean we can’t find ways to accommodate transgender student athletes. To see a swimming official resign after all of her hard work because she didn’t want to have the dialogue is sad. We need to wake up. It would be nice to see swimming as a leader in this issue. Some people want all or nothing and that is unfortunate for people looking for the middle way.” ◄ (College or University Affiliated Swim Camp)
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[ Photo by Dan D'Addona]
A College Swimming Playoff? What About This Approach For the Future? by Cooper VanDriessche
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ith the College Football Playoff Committee releasing their final rankings of the season last month, four teams were identified as the best in the land and given the opportunity to contend for the national championship. It got the mind wondering: If swimming adopted a similar approach, what would a College Swimming Playoff look like? What is the College Football Playoff? Developed in 2014, the College Football Playoff is an annual knockout invitational tournament to determine the national champion in the Football Bowl Subdivision. A committee of 13 members selects the top 25 teams in the nation, with the top four selected to compete in the College Football Playoff semifinals. The top-ranked team plays the fourth-seeded team, and the second- and third-ranked teams play each other, with the winners advancing to the title game. Teams that rank fifth through 12th are selected to make a News Years Six/BCS Bowl Game, which could be the Peach Bowl, the Cotton Bowl Classic, the Orange Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl. On a rotating, three-year basis, two of these Bowls are used for the CFP semifinals and four are used for the fifth through 12th teams. How Would a College Swimming Playoff Work? To create an effective College Swimming Playoff, the NCAA would have to rewrite how college swimming currently works. There are many factors that make the college football work, and many of these factors would apply to a swimming playoff as well. Dual Meets Only In college football, each team plays once a week. The days vary can vary, but most are on Saturday and all end by that night. To create an effective College Swimming Playoff, swim seasons would start to follow a similar format. Each week, teams would face off in dual-meet competitions. As a
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team starts to rack up wins and losses, separation in records would be evident. The season schedule would like this: Weeks 1-6: Dual Meets Week 7: Bye Week Weeks 8-13-Dual Meets Week 14: Conference Championships In a dual-meet only format, championship meets (as they are now) would no longer be held. A conference championship would work by having the two best teams in the conference face off, once again in a dual-meet setup, with the winner declared the conference champion. This format would lead to a more conference-focused, dual-meet season. Each team would be required to meet conference foes for at least 8 of the 12 meets, with the other four meets set aside for out-ofconference matchups. With the requirement of conference matchups, this leads to the possibility of schools becoming independent, such as Notre Dame in football. Being an Independent, or not in a power conference, would not affect a team’s standing in the polls. The Polls In many sports, polls are used to rank teams, polls generally don’t matter in any sport except football, and in this new swimming format, polls would become the center of attention. All meets in college swimming would be completed by Saturday evening, leaving a committee of members to vote for the best 25 teams. Polls would be released each Monday night, in a special poll release show on a network such as ESPN. The polls would then help decide how meets will be looked at for the week
ahead, such as if two top 25 teams are meeting. Criteria for being ranked in the polls include, total wins and losses, wins over top 25 teams, and best overall performances. If a team is able to present a well rounded dual meet no matter conference affiliation it will be taken into consideration before voting for the top 25. The Committee Much like in the College Football Playoff, there would be a committee of members that vote each week for the top 25 swim teams in the nation. This committee would be made up of some of the best former College Swimming Coaches, and current Division 1 University Athletic Directors. Names such as Frank Busch, Jon Urbanchek, and David Marsh are all people who could make up the committee..
be held at the IUPUI Natatorium, due to the fact that Indiana has such a rich history in swimming and is centrally located in the country. It would be the best place to welcome teams and fans for the best swim meet of the year. What will differ about this meet, from the other regularseason dual meets, is that a prelims/finals format will be used. Each team will be allowed to enter up to four swimmers per event, with the top six after prelims making it back to finals. The same criteria would apply to relays. For individual events, scoring would look like this: First Place-8 Points Second Place-5 Points Third Place-4 Points
The committee would additionally meet every week to watch the meets, and vote based on the criteria given for ranking in the polls. The members on this committee would be responsible for maintaining fairness in the rankings by not holding teams from moving up or down based upon personal bias. In this committee a Coach or Athletic Director associated with a certain school would not be able to give input on where the school they are representing or represented should be in the polls.
Fourth Place-3 Points
The Bowl Meets The top twelve after the final poll is released will be assigned to a Bowl Meet, each bowl will be assigned to some of the best pools in the nation. These pools include the Avery Aquatic Center at Stanford University for the Goggle Bowl. The Freeman Aquatic Center at the University of Minnesota for the Chlorine Bowl. The Greensboro Aquatic Center for the SpeedBowl. The Lee and Joe Jamil Texas Swimming Center, at the University of Texas for the Texan Bowl. The Martin Aquatic Center, at Auburn University for the Gainz Bowl. Rounding out the six bowl meets will be the H2O Bowl at the Gabrielsen Natatorium, at the University of Georgia. Additionally two of these bowl meets will host the national semifinals for the top 4 College Swim Teams in the nation. Each bowl meet will be on a three year rotation like the College Football Playoffs, so that each bowl will host a national semifinal.
The Possibilities Creating a new competitive approach for college swimming opens up doors for a sport that is usually only watched every four years by the general public. This idea makes college swimming much more marketable. College football in America is a tradition, and swimming could start to see the same reality. Due to the fact that swimming becomes more marketable in this new format, we could see the birth of new media ventures that will help present the sport to the general public. The television sports network ESPN sees great ratings every Saturday for its flagship show, College Gameday. With this new format of swimming, we could see the birth of swimming-related pre-meet shows, such as College Meet Day.
Although the top twelve teams will compete in the premiere six bowls, other teams outside of the top twelve will also have an opportunity to compete in a bowl meet. If a college team ammases at least 6 wins per season they will be bowl eligible. They won’t be able to compete in a premiere bowl, but they will have the opportunity to compete at a lesser bowl meet. The National Championship In an event which would be viewed as the biggest stage in college swimming, the College Swimming National Championship would bring together the winners of the national semifinals into the swimming capital of the United States: Indianapolis. Each National Championship Meet will
Fifth Place-2 Points Sixth Place 1 Point For relay events, scoring will be doubled. The meet would start on Friday and conclude on Saturday afternoon, the team with the most points named the national champion.
Most importantly, this new format of swimming will help create a closer relationship for athletes with their teams. Due to the fact that more emotion will be placed on dual meets, in the fight to make the playoffs, it will help build stronger bonds between teammates because they have to help each other to bring home wins at every meet. Would Texas remain atop the men’s heap, as it has in the current format? Could a regular-season upset derail a program’s title hopes, such as when Appalachian State knocked off Michigan on the football field years ago. Nothing is off the table in the College Swimming Playoff. ◄ All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff. BIWEEKLY
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>> Todd DeSorbo, UVA
The Essence of College Recruiting: The Salesman by Noah Mitchell
The Search When a person looks to buy a new car or a new house, they always negotiate with someone who makes a living selling. A salesperson understands the ins and outs of the product or service they represent, and explains the appeal, strengths, and weaknesses. They understand and aid in the desires of their clients, all leading to an eventual deal. Collegiate coaches are no different. While they must design the program and train their athletes, coaches’ careers flourish or wilt under the ability to recruit. Many championship level programs have diminished in only a few years due to their supply of athletes and talent. In essence, a coach must be a true salesperson, one who creates the product they are selling. The Product The first principle of sales is making a product that someone would want to buy. While many try to say the team or school is that product, it is actually the coach that is the purchase. Recruits are pledging themselves to train under this coach for the next four years, holding to the faith that this training will make them better athletes. Programs rise and fall under the tutelage of a coach. Strong programs receive a wider pool of applicants, but coaches that are under constraints or managing a new program can still lead the charge. They just need to sell what they can accomplish with the athletes under the program they are creating. They can bring in specific talent to spearhead the emergence of 26
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powerhouse classes. It becomes a snowball effect. A coach’s abilities that can be logically shown are training style, set construction, stroke development/refinement and taper design. All of these areas are transformed and quantified by the times their swimmers can produce. By reviewing an individual swimmer’s progress throughout the year and making a broad comparison for patterns across the team, a coach can show prospects what their program is specifically about. The ebb and flow of intensity and the effect it has on swims at dual meets. The promise to improve stroke efficiency of commits. And the most important, time drops by team members. How well they swam in contrast to before entering college. All aspects of what makes the program desirable. The Person The second principle of sales is knowing how to sell your product. This specifically means knowing how to read people and engage with them on a personal level. The level of importance this principle has in athletics is magnified even further. How well a coach can communicate with recruits and parents directly reflects his/her approachability as the leader of that team and vice-versa. What athlete would willingly choose to train for someone that can’t hold a decent conversation with them? They would never choose that school. This builds into the first principle as well. If a coach is strong
The Sale The final and most important principle of sales is believing in your product first and foremost. If you aren’t willing to truly put all your effort and faith into your purpose, then others will notice. Those that truly care will do whatever they can to improve the team. They will research new techniques and methods of training in an attempt to help their athletes better. These individuals will search for new and exciting possibilities for their team to grow, whether that be new meets with more intense racing or better training trip locations.
[ Photo by Andy Ringgold/Aringo ]
at communicating during the recruiting process, it also yields itself to producing better swimmers. The coach is better at reasoning with their athletes, and projecting a clear vision of what’s required on both ends. What details must be worked on and why. Supporting and understanding reasons why swimmers might leave the team. Know how to compromise so that an athlete doesn’t have to continually question their passion for the sport. All of which result in a better built team, the best product.
>> Carol Capitani, Texas
These coaches are the ones who truly succeed and create legacies. They find more happiness in the success of the team than anything else. And when someone is so passionate about their craft, it becomes contagious. It is matched by the other coaches and athletes. They begin to put in more effort and believe more in the process when they see their leader doing the same. Most coaches fail to learn how to use all three principles. They can try to over-compensate by being stronger in a singular aspect, but this means their style of coaching will always be handicapped. It is easy to see whenever a coach is a true salesman, and applies all of these principles into one team. Over the course of a few years, they can accomplish more and create a conducive atmosphere for championship winning programs. That is the true art of being a people person, of being a salesperson where the product is yourself. ◄ All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff. BIWEEKLY
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[ Photo by ASU Athletics ]
‘‘I Would Do It Again’’: Arizona State Back Stronger off Team Redshirt Year by Matthew De George
W
hen Nora Deleske and her Arizona State teammates left the Zoom meeting in July 2020, they were convinced by the vision laid out by Bob Bowman. Nearly 18 months later, Deleske hasn’t wavered.
from March through August. To ramp up to a season would do his swimmers a disservice, and it would rob them of the natural rhythm of a college season, with its late-fall peak for invitationals and spring finals.
Along the way, though, there were moments when sustaining that belief wasn’t easy, when there was nothing rosy about the uphill slog of training without a meet in sight.
So instead of rushing toward an incomplete season, Arizona State took itself out of the mix. It took pressure off swimmers pushing for the Tokyo Olympics the next summer not to have to decide on a gap year, and alleviated any conflict for those who had redshirted or deferred the 2019-20 season before the Games were postponed. The decision was, as Bowman says, the kind of creative solution that the university was looking for. It was made in consultation with the administration, and it met with near unanimous approval from the swimmers.
“I think we thought it was going to be a lot, I wouldn’t say easier, but there were a lot more roadblocks in the way that we haven’t had to experience before,” Deleske told Swimming World last week. “And so I was really proud of all of the men and women on our team just because we handled adversity really well.” The Sun Devils made headlines in the summer of 2020 when Bowman announced that the program would redshirt its swimmers for the season, which at that point was very much in doubt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As they’ve returned to competition this fall, there are no regrets to that decision. “I would do it again, and I feel like it was the call then,” Bowman said. “And so did the NCAA, they gave everyone another year. We just did it first.” Bowman’s calculus then was that his Sun Devils were in no position to compete in the fall. They’d been out of the water 28
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“It was a really big team decision, more so, and it felt like we were a part of it, which I was super grateful for,” Deleske said. “When we first heard the news, I think it was a lot more excitement and oh my gosh, this is going to be amazing, this is the best thing that could happen, because no one really knew what was going on. “ At that point in July, it looked as if the NCAA might not have any college sports in 2020-21. Not until August, when cases hit a summer lull and a groundswell of opposition to football postponement, did the situation start to change. For swim teams, though, that still meant condensed schedules, many with league-only opponents or no fall schedule, including no
invitationals. Part of what made it an easier sell at Arizona State is the building process that Bowman has overseen since he was hired in April 2015. His goal was to elevate the Sun Devils into a national power. To some of his veterans who’ve been along for the ride in that process, framing the redshirt as a down payment on future success fit that plan. “The very first thing that Bob said to is, look, this is an investment for our program,” captain Evan Carlson said. “We kept them safer,” Bowman said. “We were able to have a year of development. I think we had some kids on our team that I feel like needed a year, and I also think we’re able to keep some guys who were fifth-years who got to develop as well.” That doesn’t mean it was easy, physically or emotionally. The FOMO of seeing friends and former teammates swimming was very real. The thought of a Pac-12 Championships and an NCAAs going on without them was painful. For some of the underclassmen who might not have known what they were missing, the challenge was a seemingly interminable wait until their next (or first) meet. Veterans still felt the sting of not being able to compete, even if they kept the larger picture in mind. “It’s been ups and downs,” Bowman said. “I’d be less than honest to say it’s been a walk in the park, because there’s been many challenges even though we weren’t competing.” It required a lot of believing in each other, Deleske said, providing the validation and motivation that usually comes from external sources. “It was this huge grind, which now all of us have an amazing training base and we’re super grateful for that now,” she said. “But looking back on it and being in there, it was definitely difficult to get the freshmen and those younger classes excited about swimming collegiately because they’ve never had that experience yet. The coaches did a great job continuing to tell us that, hey you’re going to have your time to race, but focus on school right now, get done what you need to get done and take this as a learning experience.”
progress, but also boosted their resolve with a chance to cheer for teammates and remind themselves of the college atmosphere they came to Tempe for. Bowman said the team lowered a handful of short-course yards records during the year, even without an actual meet. They also concocted informal meets, like a scrimmage against the University of Arizona for the men this fall while the women opened their season in Washington. Deleske left the year off with a better sense of how to race herself. She cites a handful of best times from a long-course tune-up for Olympic Trials last summer that featured just two or three Arizona State swimmers per heat. That notion of not needing an external rival to bring out the best in her felt empowering. “I think that kind of stuff goes to show how the coaches changed our minds,” Deleske said. “When you’re in a race sometimes, you worry so much about what the person is doing next to you, and it really solidified that, just worry about what you’re doing. Take the time to do all your details right. Take the time to just really hone in on the small things, and you’ll see people doing amazing things, and I think that’s something that’s really exciting for us coming into this year. I’ve seen all these men and women do amazing things and I know you’re going to see that at the end of the year.” The redshirt paid off for a number of individuals. Bowman was pleased with the Sun Devils’ performance at the U.S. Olympic Trials in the summer. ASU was represented in Tokyo by Jarod Arroyo, swimming for Puerto Rico, plus incoming freshman Leon Marchand of France. In its first big meet of the 2021-22 season, Arizona State impressed at the NC State Invitational with 10 program records, led by Marchand, Emma Nordin and a new mark in the men’s 800 free relay. Grant House flourished in the freestyle events. Getting back to racing in dual meets – the women opened Oct. 16 at Washington State, the men Nov. 6 by hosting USC – was a different sensation, with the captains having to show young swimmers the ropes. (As a consequence of the redshirt, around half the roster is either true or redshirt freshmen.) But Deleske said that representing Arizona State and instead of Pitchfork definitely feels different.
“We had faith in the coaches. We had faith in each other,” Carlson said. “So while everybody was off competing at their own meets, we had our meets here, and I think that a lot of our guys and girls were able to throw down very fast times and we went into the summer season pretty excited about things.”
The entire experience has brought the team closer, a byproduct Bowman had hoped for. Having leaned on each other in so many difficult moments over the last year, the support structure is primed for a season that looks much more normal. The brotherhood that Carlson and others once talked about in abstract terms has become very, very real.
The big challenge for Bowman was devising “competitive opportunities” to fill the void. Much of that came under the banner of Pitchfork Swim and Dive at local sectional meets. Friday practices would usually be reserved for racing of some kind, with the timing system in for a skins competition or off-events races. It gave swimmers a chance to gauge their
“I think the camaraderie of the team has gone through the roof through the last year,” Carlson said. “We all went through something that no one expected to go through, with the pandemic and everyone redshirting, and just the fact that all of us shared that really unique experience brought a lot of us really, really close.” ◄ BIWEEKLY
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[ Photo by Mike Lewis / ISL ]
ISL Experience Proves Katerine Savard Has More to Give at 28 by Matthew De George
K
aterine Savard wasn’t sure if she’d see her times from the early 2010s ever again, not in her late 20s. So when she rolled back the years in the International Swimming League playoffs with the Cali Condors, she was surprised in the best kind of way. But Savard’s 2021 was more than just a story of ISL success. What Savard achieved on either side of ISL showed impressive staying power for one of Canada’s veterans. In Savard, the Canadians have a bridge between eras, from the comparatively modest days before Rio to the current profusion of talent. “That was really amazing,” Savard said of the ISL experience, in a Zoom conference before Short-Course Worlds in December. “I think I learned a lot about myself. I think I’ve learned to think differently how to swim my race, and I think even if I have all that background, I’ve still grown up in that experience. I’m really happy with my performances. “I did my best times in 10 years, so I think I still have to learn things. I think I still have something in me.” On paper, the one-year delay of the Tokyo Olympics may
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have impacted no one in the program quite as much as Savard. She would have been 27 when the Tokyo Games began as scheduled in 2020, the only active holdover from the 2012 Olympics, a Games in which no Canadian woman medaled. Already, she’d begun laying the groundwork for her post-swimming career as an actor, starring as a swimmer in the film “Nadia, Butterfly.” To wait another 12 months, until age 28, might have seemed too much. But Savard has dispelled any such suspicion. It began at Canadian Olympic trials, when she scored an Olympic A cut in the 100 butterfly in 57.86. She was even quicker at the Olympics to advance out of prelims at 57.51. That time is her fastest long-course result since Worlds in 2013 (57.31; she went 57.52 at Worlds in 2015). Savard was 11th in prelims and 16th overall in her only individual event in Tokyo. (On the progress front, she finished 16th in London in 2012 in 59.22.) Savard’s emergence patched a potential weakness in the Canadian relay establishment, especially with Taylor Ruck’s struggles in freestyle (and for good reason, it would later be revealed). Savard was fourth at Canadian trials in the 200
[ Photo by Scott Grant / Swimming Canada ]
free, cracking 1:58. She finished fourth in both the 50 and 100 free. Though she didn’t win a medal, as when she got bronze from the 800 free relay in Rio, the Canadians came close. The 800 free, in which Savard swam prelims, finished fourth in the final with a national record. Savard also swam on the mixed medley relay that didn’t escape prelims. Again, it could’ve been easy to pull the chute at that point. Three Olympics and one medal, copious hardware from the panoply of international events (Pan Ams, Pan Pacs, Commonwealth, World University Games), voluminous interests outside of the pool – that’s quite a career. But Savard believed she had more left.
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Hence the ISL participation, where she joined the defending champion Cali Condors and fit in seamlessly. Though the Condors didn’t defend their crown, they were one of the best squads in ISL, and the stroke depth on the women’s side that Savard augmented was a big reason why. She hit her apex in the Condors’ final playoff match, ISL Match 17. She went 1:54.60 in the 200 free, within a half-second of the time she posted at Short-Course Worlds in 2016. In the 200 fly, she buzzed within one tenth, at 2:05.64, of a time she set at Worlds …. in 2012. At Short-Course Worlds in December, Savard claimed four relay medals, three gold and one silver. Two required starring roles – swimming third in the final of the 800 free relay that set an America’s record, anchoring the gold-medal tie in the 400 free relay. She was a big reason that Canada, even without Penny Oleksiak and Ruck, didn’t miss a beat in global competition. Savard had convinced herself that she had more to give. And the performances have testified to that fact. “Just training with the best in the world (in ISL), I’ve gained confidence about it that I can train with them, I can do the same times as them in training,” she said. “I think I’ve gained a lot of confidence, and I think it will help me for the next couple of months.” ◄
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PROGRESSION OF TIMES SCY
2018
2019
2020
2021
1:49.78
1:47.34
1:47.53
1:45.28
500 Free
4:45.11
4:43.80
4:40.85
4:38.39
200 IM
2:02.44
1:58.07
1:58.10
1:58.70
400 IM
4:11.65
4:07.63
4:10.00
4:04.48
200 Free
[ Photo Courtesy: Kristi Weyant ]
LC
HOW THEY TRAIN
2018
2019
2020
2021
400 Free
4:14.16
4:09.07
4:10.33
4:09.22
800 Free
8:37.35
8:29.31
8:36.08
8:34.93
400 IM
4:40.64
4:35.4
4:39.64
4:32.76
EMMA WEYANT
BY MICHAEL J. STOTT
B
y any measure, Emma Weyant, under the tutelage of her Sarasota Shark coach Brent Arckey, has had a whale of a run. Leading up to her silver-medal performance in Tokyo in the 400 meter IM (4:32.76), the three-time USA Swimming national team member had also won 400 IM titles at the 2019 U.S. nationals (4:35.47—third best all-time for 17-18 girls) and 2018 Junior Pan Pac Championships (4:40.64). In addition, she was a four-time high school All-American and four-time Florida high school 500 yard free and 200 IM champion. But wait, there’s more. This college season, as a member of reigning NCAA women’s team champion Virginia, Weyant has continued to post stellar times as the Cavaliers march toward the season-ending competition, March 16-19, in Atlanta. Her partnership with Arckey began seven years ago when she was a talented breaststroker and distance freestyler. “Emma is shy, driven, goal-oriented and very thorough, hard-working, processed, focused and resilient,” says Arckey. To get her experience, Arckey took Weyant to the 2017 World Championship Trials. “After she finished her 400 IM, she went back to training and had the opportunity to work with some national teamers—most importantly, Elizabeth Beisel. Elizabeth was great to her, and I felt then Emma started to believe she could be a national teamer herself. “Later that summer at the U.S. Open, Weyant was disqualified in the 400 IM. After that, she chose to time-trial and went even faster than her DQ time (4:52.24). That was when I knew she had the resiliency to do whatever she wanted in the sport.” Since then Weyant has continued to evince training traits that coaches hold dear. “Emma is thoughtful, meticulous and has no fear,” says Arckey. “She is a fighter, hates to lose and is the best kicker I’ve ever had. While she tends to be quiet, she has grown into an admired team leader.” Her elevation to the world’s No. 1-ranked 18-and-under 400 IMer and subsequent win at the 2019 nationals (and sixth in the 800 meter 42 32
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free) “put her into the mindset that she could be a player on the international stage,” says Arckey. SAMPLE SETS: IM (ALL LC) Set 1: Weyant focuses on 400 IM race stroke counts, tempos and by 50 time of each 100 • 4x {4-6 x 100 Rounds: 1. Free/fly by 50, descend fly with race stroke counts @ 1:20 2. Back pull, negative split and descend @ 1:30 3. Breast, negative split and descend with race stroke counts @ 1:40 4. Free, descend with a focus on big legs and race tempo @ 1:20 Set 2: Weyant is usually sub-2:10 on fly and back, under 2:30 breast, under 2:00 free • 4x {3 x 150 kick, descend 1-3 to max effort @ 2:40 + 50 recovery @ 1:00 Rounds: IM order Goal is to be as far under your best 200-meter swim time as possible Set 3: Weyant was 4:36 on the final 400 in 2019 a few weeks out of U.S. nationals • 4 x 400 “Quarters” @ 7:00 1. 100 as fast as possible, easy 300 2. 200 fly/back as fast as possible, easy 200 3. 300 fly/back/breast as fast as possible, easy 100 4. Free IM RACE (100 free, 100 back, 100 breast, 100 free)
Michael J. Stott is an ASCA Level 5 coach, golf and swimming writer. His critically acclaimed coming-of-age golf novel, “Too Much Loft,” was published in June 2021, and is available from store.Bookbaby. com, Amazon, B&N and book distributors worldwide.
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