We chatted with Canadian national teamer Ingrid Wilm to discuss her years-long journey at one of Canada's top backstrokers. Wilm discussed what it was like training through the pandemic, why she nearly had to stop swimming altogether, and what it took to win a national title in the 100 backstroke at the 2023 Canada Trials.
This week on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we preview the Atlanta Classic, recap the Chinese World Trials, and discuss what summer meet is the most desirable for Americans.
We sat down with Kevin Mann, the head coach of Loyola High School, days before the end of his season AKA the CIF State Championships. Mann has been coaching at Loyola for 23 years and puts an emphasis on team culture, even with standouts on his team like Rex Maurer. After losing the Southern Section meet to Santa Margherita by 3 points, Mann looks to lead his team to a back-to-back state title this weekend. Mann also discusses the work-life balance between coaching during the CA high school seas...
Just days before his last CIF Championships (and high school meet) ever, Loyola senior Rex Maurer sat down with SwimSwam to give an insider's look at his last two weeks. Last Friday at the CIF-SS champs, after contracting the flu and being bed-ridden for 2+ days, Maurer clocked a personal best in the 200 free (1:33.57) while winning the 500 free in 4:12.70, a new national high school record. Maurer looks to carry his momentum into this week's CIF Champs, where Loyola is seeded to win the meet an...
We sat down with Team USA's World University Games coaching staff for swimming, including head women's coach Jacy Dyer, head men's coach Peter Richardson, and Director of Swimming Ian Quinn. Without funding from USA Swimming on this trip, the staff has had to do everything on their own, including selecting a coaching staff and roster as well as completely funding the trip themselves. Each member discusses what that has looked like so far and what it will look like moving into the Games. If you'r...
JR DeSouza is an Olympic finalist, Pan American Games finalist, World Champion, Brazil National Champion, and SEC Champion back when we both swam for the University of Tennessee. JR is also an entrepreneur, the co-founder and CEO of Outex . What is Outex? The Outex phone case is the perfect waterproof tool for swimmers and water sports. It’s faster, easier, and cheaper than action-cams, and delivers better imaging results. It works with the phone you already have safely underwater, and it’s comp...
Carson Foster announced that he will forego the rest of his NCAA career and turn pro, focusing on long course in the lead up to the 2023 world champ trials and 2024 Olympic Trials. Foster discusses what went into this decision for him and the timeline in which he made this decision. Foster discusses a myriad of topics, including racing Leon Marchand , 2023 NCAA Championships, and his partnership with Mizuno...
We sat down with Abby Dunford , the newly named open water world championship team member for Canada and member of the elite Sarasota Sharks training group. Dunford shares experience not only training with the Sharks but with the Sandpipers of Nevada for 3 years before moving to the Sharks as well. The high school junior shares her favorite distance sets, one of her hardest sets ever, and what it's like training with world champions such as Summer McIntosh and Claire Weinstein ....
On the SwimSwam Podcast today we welcome back my friend and go-to for all things dryland training, Chris Ritter, founder of SURGE Strength. SURGE Strength leads the way in dryland training for swimmers allover the world. Visit Chris' website https://surgestrength.com/ to learn more. And, specifically, go to this link - https://surgestrength.com/webinar - to register for the free webinar, THURSDAY, APRIL 27th AT 1PM EST, about Dryland Programs & Certification from SURGE Strength. The goal of ...
Brent Boock is the Head Coach of the Elmbrook Swim Club in Brookfield Wisconsin. The team has earned Gold Medal status in USA Swimming’s Club Excellence Program the last four years, this past year finishing 9th in those rankings. Their Women won the team title last summer at Junior Nationals, winning 4 out of 5 relays and breaking the 200 and 400 medley relay National Age Group records. Last month at the NCSA Championships in Orlando they won the Women’s team title, sweeping the relays and besti...
We sat down with Dan Wiffen, the Irishman who became the #4 performer in history in the 1,500 freestyle this weekend in Stockholm. He discusses what he was expecting out of himself heading into the meet as well as how he has elevated his training over the past 6 months to reflect his performances. Wiffen is at the point where he's calling out sets to challenge himself (he notes 6x500 on 5:30 best average). Wiffen makes it clear that now, with only 4 more seconds to shave off, he's gunning for Su...
We sat down with Steve Buckley of Pullbuoy, the UK's biggest independent swim site. Buckley discusses the British selection process for the upcoming 2023 world champs, specifically how British swimming changed the criteria half way through the trials meet. Steve also gives his insight into Britain's chances of medaling in the relays on both the men's and women's sides in Fukuoka.
This week on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we discuss the upcoming Pro Swim in Westmont, Britain and Japan's world champ trials, and SwimSwam's #1 recruit announcing his decision.
Two-time Olympian Javier Acevedo has been on the Canadian national team for nearly a decade, first racing internationally in 2015 at the World Junior Championships. He recently qualified for the 2023 World Championships after winning a national title in the men’s 50 backstroke, 100 backstroke, and 200 freestyle. In this episode of the SwimSwam podcast, he discusses the journey that his career has taken him on, Canada’s relay potential, and what he thinks his legacy within Canadian swimming will ...
(Originally published November 11, 2022) Brent Arckey is in his 12th year with the Sarasota Sharks and he’s been the Head Coach/CEO since 2017. The Sharks finished 7th last year in the USA Swimming Club Excellence Program rankings and Brent has been on multiple USA Swimming International staffs. Recently, up-and-arrived superstar Summer McIntosh has moved to Sarasota to train with Brent and the Sharks. In this conversation, we discuss the training approach from top to bottom at Sarasota. Brent b...
In this episode of the SwimSwam podcast, we sat down with Lucas Henveaux , the NAIA golfer-turned-NCAA swimmer who ended up helping the Cal Golden Bears win the men's swimming title last month. Henveaux tells us how he circled back around to swimming, what his goals are now in the pool, and what he makes of Summer McIntosh's monster mid-distance swims from last week.
This week on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we discuss the men's and women's NCAA Championships, Summer McIntosh at the 2023 Canadian Trials, and the state of swimming right now.
In honor of Women's History Month, Olympians and Speedo Athletes Abbey Weitzeil and Erica Sullivan sat down to discuss being a woman in swimming. This included balancing femininity with being an athlete, training with men vs training with women, and how they lean on their support systems in and out of the pool.
Sage Hopkins just finished his 18th season as the Head Coach at San Jose State University. It was supposed to be the first season with some closure after a 13-year scandal that exposed student-athletes to an athletic trainer who molested athletes and the coverup that surrounded it. Sage goes through the entire story, starting in 2009 when an athlete responded to his suggestion to go see the trainer, Scott Shaw, with, “No thanks. I don’t want to be molested.” From there 17 swimmers gave statement...
On the eve of the men's 2023 NCAA Championships, we sat down with head coach Bob Bowman to get his perspective on his team headed into the big meet. The sun devils are fresh off their first Pac-12 conference title in history and Bowman said it took a while for his guys to bounce back from that meet in the pool. However, headed into this week, the 2016 Olympic head coach said they're doing things they never have before in practice, always a good sign heading into a championship meet.
We sat down with Todd DeSorbo, the head coach of the 2x defending NCAA Champion Virginia women. DeSorbo takes is through the UVA process for the ACC championships as well as their mindset heading into NCAAs. DeSorbo says winning a championship isn't something he puts a huge emphasis on in practice, but rather focuses on outperforming where the team was last year. When asked what event he's most looking forward to, DeSorbo gives a... diplomatic answer.
Listen in as Braden, YanYan, and Coleman give their event-by-event predictions for the upcoming 2023 Women's NCAA Championships.
The women’s 1650 free race at NCAAs later this week is going to look real slow, because Katie Ledecky just went a 15:01.41 in the event to break the US Open and American record at the 2023 Florida Swimming Spring Senior Champs. Ledecky broke her own record time of 15:03.31, which set in November 2017 at the Art Adamson Invite when she was still swimming collegiately for Stanford. Ledecky finished her race over a minute ahead of Florida swimmer Caroline Pennington , who finished in second with a ...
SwimSwam sat down with Sergiy Fesenko, an NCAA All-American for Indiana and World University Games medalist. Fesenko discusses a myriad of topics, from training under Ray Looze in the early 2000s to growing up with an Olympic champion as his father. Fesenko then turns to the war in Ukraine, expressing that Russian and Belarusian athletes should not be allowed to compete until this war is over. Sergiy is doing what he can to aid Ukraine during this war, including convincing the Indiana Military M...
SwimSwam sat down with World Champs medalist Leah Hayes after her superb weekend of racing at the 2023 Chicagoland Championships, highlighted by her 4:03 .05 400 IM. Hayes said she was hoping for a drop in that event and even wrote her target splits out for the race, which had added up to a 4:04 . Hayes also discusses training with her world champ teammates at the upcoming National Team Training Camp in March as well as the prospect of racing fellow 200 IM international medalists and future Virg...
The 200 medley relay and 800 free relay races from the 2023 SEC and ACC Championships have just concluded, and we’ve got plenty of things to say about them. Watch here live as SwimSwam’s Coleman Hodges and Yanyan Li break down day one of conference champs.
SwimSwam sat down with Nick Mahabir, the Singaporean national known for swimming under David Marsh in San Diego and popping a 1:00 100m breast as a teenager. Mahabir, who has temporarily moved back to Singapore to train for the upcoming SEA Games and World Championships (both of which will occur in Asia), recently attended a media event where World Aquatics announced that Singapore would be hosting the 2025 World Championships. With the move back to his home country, Mahabir discusses how daily ...
Chezik Tsunoda is a profile in strength through vulnerability. Her film, Drowning In Silence, tackles the silent epidemic of childhood drowning, and it is driven by personal experience, the loss of her son, Yori. Chezik courageously shares the grieving process and the journey of her healing. Backed by years of experience in this medium, Chezik's film unfolds as an investigation, digging into the historic racial disparity in our nation, from slavery to the Jim Crow era. The narrative educates and...
Mike Parratto has a very unique perspective on greatness, having coached two Olympians more than two decades apart. In this SwimSwam Podcast chat he goes into details about both Jenny Thompson’s and Regan Smith’s road to greatness. Mike tells stories about each of them having races at young ages that showed their unique abilities. He also gets into some pretty amazing sets from both of them. On top of coaching Olympians he’s also father to one, as his daughter Jessica made the 2016 and 2020 US O...
Executive Director of Diversity in Aquatics Dr. Miriam Lynch has deep swimming roots. She developed her swimming muscle at the powerhouse Nation's Capital Aquatic Club, eventually earning a scholarship to swim at Howard University. At Howard, Dr. M made her mark breaking six individual and three relay team records--which was the most in Howard's history at that time. Her 1650 record lasted nearly 20 years, until it was recently broken by a swimmer Dr. M coached. That's right, Dr. M is a voluntee...
