At the risk of touching off another flame war...
Please let the record reflect that Adrienne Binder, a self described Total Immersion swimmer, posted the following results at NCAA Div. I Championships:
1650 Free - 15:57.64 3rd
georgiadogs.collegesports.com/.../060316F015.htm
400 IM - 4:11.83 4th
georgiadogs.collegesports.com/.../060316F008.htm
500 Free - 4:41.99 4th
georgiadogs.collegesports.com/.../060316F002.htm
Acknowledging the caveat that she is a Junior at Auburn Univ. and therefore has been swimming in their program for three years and therefore is not a "pure" TI swimmer (to the extent the results of any swimmer can be purely attributed to one coach, program or school of technique and training).
This pretty clearly demonstrates that it is possible to "succeed" at the highest levels of competition while using TI principles. This is not to say that everyone will "succeed" using TI, or that everyone can "succeed" using TI, or indeed that TI necessarily has value for everyone.
However, we ain't the ones hollering "Show me a world class TI swimmer!" Well, there you have it.
Matt
I think I understand now. Adrienne's failure to make the Olympic team in 2004 was blamed on the fact that she was training at Auburn rather than in a TI program. Now that she has performed well at NCAAs (as a junior), we credit her TI training rather than the Auburn program.
Personally I think this demonstrates that Dave Marsh is a great coach.
And here we go again. Everyone seems to have opinions on this topic, which have been expressed many times before, let's not start this discussion again.
Originally posted by scyfreestyler
It seems to me that her best 1650 time was achieved before she swam for Auburn. Am I wrong?
Are you implying that her NCAA performance is good enough to validate her age group TI program, but not good enough to validate Dave Marsh's Auburn program?
The way I see it, she is an NCAA finalist who does not train using TI techniques.
Having watched her race and spoken to an Auburn coach, very familiar with TI, his words were "She doesn't swim the stroke you see in the video anymore"
As with almost any swimmer, the exact cause of the results is questionable. These are definitely good times, but we can choose to give credit to either Auburn or TI, based on previously held views.
Here's my opinion on TI: It can be helpful for at some swimmers, especially weaker adult swimmers. If TI was useless for all swimmers, it would not still be popular after 15 years. If it was the ideal program for all swimmers, many more coaches would be using it. Therefore, TI can be helpful, but it is not perfect. Hopefully most people would be able to agree with this, although I know the matter of how useful it is is a major area of debate.
