Cesar Cielo Will be Back Under Brett Hawke’s Training Guidance; Splitting Time Between Countries

Cesar Cielo will be back under the guidance of Brett Hawke and Auburn University in the near-term future, signalling the end of the PRO16 project.

In reports that we’ve been hearing for about a month now, but first confirmed today by Blog do Coach, Cielo is leaving the PRO16 group that he and several other top Brazilian Swimmers hoped would revolutionize the sport in their country under Alberto Pinto (known in his country often as just “Albertinho”.

Now, he will spend “camps” training in the United States under his former college and post-graduate coach Brett Hawke, split with time training back home in Brazil with Scott Goodrich. Goodrich is a former Auburn swimmer who most recently was working with Arizona State, and he will basically act as a surrogate for Hawke’s training routines so that Cielo can remain at home and meet the demands of sponsors. This is not an uncommon arrangement in international swimming, though, and Goodrich will still have a major role in the coaching, and truly is the key to making the whole thing work.

“I’m happy to be back working with someone I have great respect for,” Hawke told SwimSwam today. “It looks like his first camp will be after the NCAA Championships.”

Albertinho’s dreams are not yet done, however. Even without Cielo on board, he will take a portion of the old PRO16 group and forma new professional training group under a new name. The hope is that this new group will be a bit more organized and have a more defined direction toward unified national and international success. Cielo was freed to make this sort of decision after his contract was cut by his Flamengo club.