This is insulting. A substantial part of swimming is starts and turns. Unless meets are going to be held in an endless pool from this point on, you cannot ignore the importance of all aspects of a swimming race. If you can't start and have sorry turns, you probably won't be a great swimmer. The first thing I did to shave serious time off my events was dramatically improve my turns.
I don't think Terry was trying to be insulting. I think what he was saying was that successful short course swimmers who cannot duplicate their success in long course meters are simply more skilled than their peers at starts and turns and perhaps less efficient than them at straight swimming. This echoes my opinion that swimmers who are better short course than long course are better at swimming under water, since this is where most of the start and turns are swum.
My daughter is a perfect example. She is a 5' sprinter swimming against 5'8" and up girls. She can beat them in a short course pool, but rarely beats them in long course. She has a tremendous under water dolphin kick and usually surfaces a good 1/2 body length to a full body length ahead despite being significantly shorter. While she is technically as good a swimmer as any of her peers, she cannot be as efficient because of the height disadvantage. She simply has to take more strokes to get across the length of the pool.
You're definitely right that people do tend to ignore the importance of starts and turns and that there is a tremendous opportunity to shave time by improving both.
This is insulting. A substantial part of swimming is starts and turns. Unless meets are going to be held in an endless pool from this point on, you cannot ignore the importance of all aspects of a swimming race. If you can't start and have sorry turns, you probably won't be a great swimmer. The first thing I did to shave serious time off my events was dramatically improve my turns.
I don't think Terry was trying to be insulting. I think what he was saying was that successful short course swimmers who cannot duplicate their success in long course meters are simply more skilled than their peers at starts and turns and perhaps less efficient than them at straight swimming. This echoes my opinion that swimmers who are better short course than long course are better at swimming under water, since this is where most of the start and turns are swum.
My daughter is a perfect example. She is a 5' sprinter swimming against 5'8" and up girls. She can beat them in a short course pool, but rarely beats them in long course. She has a tremendous under water dolphin kick and usually surfaces a good 1/2 body length to a full body length ahead despite being significantly shorter. While she is technically as good a swimmer as any of her peers, she cannot be as efficient because of the height disadvantage. She simply has to take more strokes to get across the length of the pool.
You're definitely right that people do tend to ignore the importance of starts and turns and that there is a tremendous opportunity to shave time by improving both.
