coach or swimmer

A 15yo guy in our squad, 51.6 over 100 freestyle, warms up on a 1:20/pace 14 stroke per 25m, swims tall. I'm sorry but i'm having trouble believing a 15 year old kid in your squad is doing 100 freestyle in just little over 3 seconds from the world record.

I gather from the post that he's referencing SCM on the 51+ 100m, not LCM. How to tell a talented swimmer? They have a magic touch with the water. They learn things faster than anyone else. They have a better physique. And then there's the "rage to master" seen in young musical, chess or math prodigies. They practice hours a day with no prompting. We have such a kid on our age group team right now. Only 7 years old. Developed precocious form in all four strokes during his first year on the team -- as a 6 year old. Reads everything he can get his hands on about swimming. Has committed all the team and LSC 8 and U, 10 and U records to memory and is plotting his course to them. No one is pushing or prompting this behavior. It leaves his mother bemused. 51.6 short course, 52.9 long course. At age 15, he was competing at world level in youth competitions, and national (Canadian) level with seniors. I was trying to find a proof on the net. I thought maybe provincial records for this age group? It was beaten recently by Yannick Lupien... 51.14 Yannick Lupien was a member of the Canadian 4x100 free Relay that finished in second place at the worlds in 2005, after the US team, before the Aussies and the South Africans. www.fnq.qc.ca/gars15-17.html

I think you coaches are being too modest. When I started masters swimming, I swam unattached with an informal lunchtime group coached by a young, enthusiastic former olympic trialist who was a master technician who loved TI. I hadn't swum in years and he overhauled my old school strokes and helped me remember how to swim. I feel like I owe him a lot and I will always remember his technical advice. I do his drills to this day. He has moved on now, and I have joined a team. We have what Terry calls a "Ready Go" coach. But she knows her stuff (ex-Canadian Olympian -- there are so many of you here on this site) and cheers us on. And I sure get better workouts in with a real team. My teammates also give great advice.

From my experience, it's the coach to a great degree. And part of what makes a good coach is finding the good raw material. I was sent to the YMCA in York, PA (1954) just to learn how to swim. After a couple of months of progressing through several levels, not extremely quickly, as I remember, I was asked to participate in their intramural fall league. This was pretty informal with no workouts outside of the lessons. After two years of that I was invited to join the team. We were in a Mid-Atlantic Y league and also participated in Mid-Atl AAU meets. The coaches were John DeBarbadillo, who was a leader in National YMCA swimming for years, and Bill Schmidt, a former competitor of Doc Councilman. At the time, Councilman was fairly unknown, but they knew him and were up-to-date on his stroke techniques and training methods. So for about a 10 year period, both at the high school and YMCA levels, we ruled the state. Then, as others picked up the methods, the playing field became more level and we were just another good program among others of the same level. I don't think we were better athletes than the others; we just had superior training and instruction. Referencing another active thread, many of the team members became instructors while in high school and John and Bill were definitely into the hands-on, in the water with the students methods. We were not allowed to wear anything but a swimsuit as instructors and were probably in the water more than we were out.

Terry: How do you know if you've got a really talented swimmer? It seems like I know some coaches who look for the "feel" or a certain physique and others who look for great athletes and, through technique work, transform them into talented swimmers.

The question from the lastest episode of deckpass http://www.deckpass.com/. Does the coach make the swimmer or does the swimmer make the coach? lets hear some disscusion on this. Talented swimmers make better coaches, which in turn try to help less talented swimmers. At least it's been the case as far as I'm concerned (as a coach).