This one was pretty close, because British Swimming requires swimmers to make the Olympic A cut to compete. Mark Foster, my favorite swimmer, has qualified to swim the 50 free at the Olympics this summer. He'll be 38 years old.
Here's an interview with Foster where he talks about things like limited training volume, the importance of lifting weights, and staying physically fit for life.
Foster also has a unique way of sprinting. In this video, he dominates a field of sprinters with the slowest stroke rate in the pool.
I find a lot of things to admire about Mark Foster, and I think it's great news that he'll get to swim at the Olympics. Hopefully, when he retires from professional swimming, he'll continue to compete in masters.
We're having this same debate with our junior squad. That group is about 15 kids 14-17 with one 18 yr old. They have 6 swimming sessions a week and swim about 7-10k m each time. With in the group, there are 5 distance free swimmers, two breatstrokers and the rest are all around, not really better at one distance or stroke than the others.
But the coach gives them all the same work outs 90% of the time. last saturday they had to options 10x1000 medley or 8x1500 fri.
one of the other master swimmer and I have tried to convice the coach that that kind of practice does no good for the 14 yr old who only wants to race the 50 and 100 ***.
the coach has actually started pushing kids out...we now have two 19 yr old girls swimming with us, because we only swim 3500-5500 3 times a week. both of them have had better seasons this year than last year. and both qualified for the Swedish Junior nationals. (under 20) but the coach still refuses to acknowledge them since one only swim *** and the other only trains for back.
We're having this same debate with our junior squad. That group is about 15 kids 14-17 with one 18 yr old. They have 6 swimming sessions a week and swim about 7-10k m each time. With in the group, there are 5 distance free swimmers, two breatstrokers and the rest are all around, not really better at one distance or stroke than the others.
But the coach gives them all the same work outs 90% of the time. last saturday they had to options 10x1000 medley or 8x1500 fri.
one of the other master swimmer and I have tried to convice the coach that that kind of practice does no good for the 14 yr old who only wants to race the 50 and 100 ***.
the coach has actually started pushing kids out...we now have two 19 yr old girls swimming with us, because we only swim 3500-5500 3 times a week. both of them have had better seasons this year than last year. and both qualified for the Swedish Junior nationals. (under 20) but the coach still refuses to acknowledge them since one only swim *** and the other only trains for back.
