Before this National meet started, I stated unequivocally what I would be watching for- the young swimmers that would replace the current generation of US stars. Depending on who you ask, we have just seen it. I remain more doubtful. While we did see a legendary NAG record go down over the course of this meet, the swims are not keeping pace with international competition. Why do I keep hammering on this point? Let me explain:
First, I've always made a point of compariing US results to international results. I've only had a blog for three years, so if it feels like I'm constantly pessimistic about swimming talent development in the United States, know that it's a recent trend. I write this blog as a way to engage with fellow coaches, swimmers and fans. So far no one's been able to give me a reasonable eomeback.
The most frequent arguments I get against what I write are on pool decks (I wish some of these guys would comment online). I will paraphrase them here -they range from semi-credible to ridiculous. The semi-credible retort is to show current results. We are certainly by far the strongest swimming country in the world and have proven that we only need a few stars to pan out to continue to do so. It is very possible that I am wrong and we will have swimmers comparable to Phelps/Lochte by Rio.
On the ludicrous end, I had the tired old argument that the 19-20 year old international swimmers that were so dominant in Shanghai are clearly products of doping. This is one of the most tired put downs we place on international results. The logic follows that if anyone is doing that much better than us, they must be cheating, because WE'RE THE BEST.
And therein lies the problem. I think that swim coaches in the United States do very little to study why pockets of success creep up around the world. We suppose that they are perhaps random, that in a few years Danish women's freestyle won't be really good and that this is the Faroe Islands one hurrah. I've tried to highlight those accomplishments in my blog to pique curiosity about just how those undermatched programs succeed where we do not.
Lastly, lest you think I am pointing the figure everywhere else, I know very much that I (and my cohort of college and club coaches) deserve a lot of the blame here. There is no lack of talent in the United States, nor is it that "kids these days" don't want to work hard. We have become stale and overconfident in our methods. It's time to look more outside the country, learn, and be better.
A "Strange Observer of All Things Swimming" and "The Helmet and Horns of a Different Opinion."
Exogenous Ketones!
Chris, What have we learned? What are the French men doing? What are the dutch women doing? What do we need to be better rather than just "be better?"
ReplyDeleteCould it also be that our athletes that age are typically attending high school or college with a pretty decent workload and, in some cases, working to support themselves? I'm friends with a French swimmer who expressed amazement that we do this, because over there, she says typically you are either a student or an athlete, not both. Education gets kicked to the wayside and sometimes not returned to. That's not really a trend I'd like to see the U.S. emulate, to be honest. It worked great for Phelps but wouldn't for everybody.
ReplyDeleteI think the athlete partnership agreement is a positive step that long term will result in much more depth on our national team. That is something we've learned I believe from countrys that had no other option than to support some athletes who aren't quite there yet.
ReplyDeleteWhat do we have yet to learn? Biological basis for training. I think that the US is in general lacking in relation to European countries in their understanding of physical science as it relates to swimming performance. US age groupers in my opinion work extremely hard relative to European peers but gain less fitness because of inferior training methods. Yardage is still the most predominant measure for training difficulty in the US. Even though very few coaches would say they use yardage my perception is that most do.
I think that we also need more professionalism in the coaching ranks. Thanks for pushing me to come up with a few things
Robin,
ReplyDeleteI think education is a great comparison. I think American children are under tremendous pressure in school relative to say, Finland, but Finnish children perform better academically.
Or just stay in our own country and figure out how we can develop untapped talent that might not have access to swimming pools. I think they call that diversity.
ReplyDeleteGreat point, livefreeswimhard! How many European countries have free access to community swimming pools and swim lessons included as part of regular schooling for their children, while we are steadily losing that access for ours and never had swim lessons in school for most kids? Not an excuse, but a place to start looking at making changes.
ReplyDeleteChris, I think the athlete partnership only helps post-grads...Being a student-athlete is tough without a full ride and lots of NCAA teams have international students...so we are often developing other nations' elite swimmers...
ReplyDeleteA) We are training a lot of our competition.
ReplyDeleteB) "The logic follows that if anyone is doing that much better than us, they must be cheating, because WE'RE THE BEST."
Well in the case of China, I have to be suspicious. I mean, look how they cheated in Gymnastics during the Beijing games. Falsified ages, etc. The Chinese have an agenda and will do *whatever it takes* to push it.
Our men's national team has gotten 3.5 years older, on average, since the 2000 Olympics (21.3 years old to 24.8 years old). We have gone from 8 teens on the men's team to zero over the same time period. I don't think it's about the pressure, I think it is that we are not bringing our younger senior swimmers along. Instead we are hanging our success on our veteran swimmers.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, these guys (and gals) work incredibly hard for their success, but this is a pretty drastic turnaround since 2000. One of the biggest changes has been our progression of championship meets. We are underemphasizing the more "developmental" senior swimmer with the changes implemented in 2001.
To quote the great Ron Burgundy "It's Science".
Here's the list of foreign swimmers CURRENTLY training in Australia:
ReplyDeleteSun Yang (golds in 800 and 1500 and silver in 400)
Park Tae Hwan (gold in 400 free)
Therese Alshammar (gold in 50 free and silver in 50 fly)
Zhao Jing (gold in 100 back)
Ellen Gandy (silver in 200 fly)
Liu Zige (bronze in 200 fly)
the entire members of China's men 4x200 (bronze)
How many current US-trained foreign swimmer won gold in Shangai? ZERO.
I don't understand all these petty complaints about foreign swimmers.
Aswimfan,
ReplyDeleteDon't you understand that three of those swimmers you listed are Chinese so in American eyes they are most definitely cheating? I joke but that's not an unpopular sentiment here. We also like to pretend that the swimmers come out of nowhere because we can't be bothered to learn their names. I had someone who I thought was pretty knowledgeable approach me during Worlds and go "I'm suspicious of this James Magnussen- where did he come from?" and I said "you didn't follow Pan-Pacs last year? He was barely 19 and pretty darn good"
Swimmers like Magnussen and Yang sort of blow out of the water any argument that the US swimmers are on some sort of longer term developmental scale. Swimming itself hasn't changed so that athletes that age can be the best, but the US has changed.
Look no further than the top university programs who are getting all the top 17/18 year old men and women. Stop blaming Age Group and start look ing at mid major and top tier Div 1 school coaches who need to take our AG talent to the next level.
ReplyDeleteAlot of our Club coaches could get those swimmers to the next level, however, they do not have that option.