Cordes is the United States’ top current male breaststroker. (Photo Courtesy: Tim Binning/TheSwimPictures.com
As Singapore is preparing to swim in (and host) their first major international competition, the regional multi-sport SEA Games, since former Bolles Swim School coach Sergio Lopez took over as the head of the National Training Center swimming program, they are being joined by some high-powered NCAA stars.
The one is predictable – Joseph Schooling, the defending NCAA Champion in the 100 and 200 yard butterflies, has returned home for a few weeks of training. He swam under Lopez during his high school years in Florida, and will represent his home country at the SEA Games. Schooling is a Singapore native, and besides the draw of the international competition, it’s fairly common for Texas swimmers to train with their home clubs after their freshmen seasons of college.
The other splashier news is that 2013 NCAA Swimmer of the Year, and American World Championships team member, Kevin Cordes will join Lopez’s training group as well.
Cordes will spent a few days after this weekend’s Mel Zajac Invitational continuing to train with Canada’s top breaststroke coach, Jozsef Nagy, before he makes the trip to Singapore.
“For someone like Cordes to choose to train with the NTC squad speaks volume about what we are doing and what we have here in Singapore,” Lopez said. “We have breaststroke swimmers like Christopher Cheong and Lionel Khoo who could directly learn a lot from him but for the other swimmers as well, they can see how Cordes trains and learn how it is to be world class in terms of training standards and attitude/”
The Singapore Sports Institute and Singapore Swimming Association jointly supported the decision, giving five key benefits that they hope to achieve:
- It will promote high standards and expectations for the National Athletes in training.
- It will foster collaboration towards achieving excellence in all areas of Singapore athletes’ performances.
- It will promote High Performance Aquatics in Singapore.
- It will provide valuable sports science and sports medicine data on world class athletes to the Singapore Sports Institute.
- It will act as a model for other sports to bring in high level athletes to help Singapore Athletes train and achieve World Class performance levels.
“This is one part of the jigsaw puzzle that will help grow swimming in Singapore. We have brought in a world class coach in Sergio and with the world class sport science support that we are getting from SSI, we are moving towards achieving our goal. Our next step is to bring in world class foreign athletes to spar with our athletes,” said Oon Jin Teik, Secretary-General SSA.
“With the Rio 2016 Olympic Games not far away, our focus was to have someone that is preparing for the Games and Cordes is definitely someone that has a great potential of even winning the gold medal in Rio and we know that by having someone like him here in Singapore, it will greatly benefit our swimmers.”
“Since we started the NTC squad, we have seen a lot of improvements in our swimmers. We have had Quah Zheng Wen clocked an ‘A’ qualifying time for Rio Olympic Games and elder sister, Quah Ting Wen, clocking a ‘B’ qualifying time. By having someone like Cordes to train alongside them, it will inspire our athletes to be like him,” said Joscelin Yeo, Vice-President (Swimming), SSA.
In Lopez’s short time with the program, huge improvements have already been seen, and from June 6th-11th, the squad will have the opportunity to show that off as they look to improve upon the 30 medals that they won at the 2013 SEA Games (that led the medals table).
Though 2013 was a successful event for the federation, they didn’t win a single medal in men’s breaststroking, which is where Lopez hopes the model of Cordes will make an impact.
Cordes was the 8th-ranked 100 long course meter breaststroker in 2014, swimming a 59.70 at the Pan Pac Championships, and has been the fastest American each of the last two long course seasons.
“I made the important decision to train with Sergio as I believe this will provide me the individual attention, focus and relationship to help to continue improve for the upcoming World Championships and 2016 Rio Olympic Games,” said the 21-year-old Cordes.
“I am excited for this change and strongly believes this gives me the opportunity to maximise my success both individually and for Team USA. I am grateful for the full support of coach DeMont (Rocket), USA swimming, SSA and SSI in this endeavour.”
Cordes won’t swim the 100 breaststroke individually at the World Championships, thanks to a DQ in finals at the Pan Pac Championships, but he will swim the 50 meter and 200 meter races.
He just completed his collegiate career as a six-time NCAA champion, and has been a member of the 2012 and 2013 World Championship squads.
the first time i saw kevin and sergio together was 2010 junior pan pacs and sergio was the head breaststroke coach. he was by far the best team usa coach there was. his expertise and knowledge is amazing. ;best of luck!1
Has anyone on the thread ever been to Singapore? I love it, but it was very expensive which to me would be a deterrent in recruiting most swimmers to move there and train. We are talking about paying $80,000 US just for the privilege of being able to buy a car and then basically paying the value of the car again in taxes.
Not that these swimmers will need to buy a car during their stay, but just an example of how expensive it is to live there.
Singapore is a great City State, with Huge ambition. They must be sponsoring his move. I wish him well. Rio is going to to stacked with talented breaststrokers, and he will be just one of them. good luck…….you’re going to need to swim sub 2:07.00 to get a medal.
Choosing to focus on the car isn’t particularly representative. They actively try to discourage car ownership there, because the city is so small.
Also if he has been given a deal by the Government then he should actually have a pretty comfortable life there.
Furthermore, Singapore has great food – I am quite surprised by DJR’s comment about losing weight because if Cordes wants he can stick to an entirely Western diet without breaking a sweat.
Also, food and other living prices themselves are actually quite cheap compared to the western world even despite imports as the distribution of expenses in a city-state like Singapore are highly skewed towards housing when compared to the US. As such, as long… Read more »
HKSwimmer: Have you ever been a US college athlete? Most of them that I know live on campus and eat food at the university dining hall or fast food restaurants very closeby. My best friend went to the U of A, and from what I hear they eat almost exclusively pizza, Tex-Mex, hamburgers, barbecue, etc. Kevin may never have had to prepare meals for himself at all. The portion sizes alone in the US are ridiculous, never mind the calorie count!
Although I’ve never been to Singapore (no doubt you have), a quick look at Wikipedia tells me 98% of their population is of Chinese, Malaysian or Indian descent. You can’t tell me the average Singaporean eats like a US… Read more »
I thought it was a medium level surprise having Cordes decide to compete in Vancouver this week instead of Charlotte last week. Better breaststroke competition, more prize money etc. in Charlotte and less than ideal conditions in Vancouver with no warm down/up pool available. Good for Kevin and best of luck in Singapore.
Well the article does mention that Cordes will train for a few days with legendary breaststroke coach Jozsef Nagy, so that is probably a major reason why he is competing in Vancouver..
Less surprising when he’s sticking around to swim with Jozsef. Remember that Jozsef coached Sergio.
I’m all for an increased commitment to training (especially LC training) for Cordes, and I have great respect for Coach Lopez, but I have a few concerns:
1. Singapore is culturally very different! Kevin will have to be very careful he doesn’t lose weight from the changes in diet alone.
2. Kevin will have nothing in his life but swimming in Singapore! He will not have social/emotional support in his preparation for the biggest meets of his life.
3. Preparation for Trials will be complicated by the time difference between Singapore and Omaha! This won’t be as much of an issue in the prep for Rio, as the entire Team from SSA will need to transition for the… Read more »
1 other thing – given the distance he will have to travel for trials, literally across the world, he would probably have to come back to the US two to three weeks to properly adjust. Is Sergio going to come with him to be his coach during that period? Or will someone else to fill in after hopefully most of the necessary work is done?
Am I the only one upset that Sergio has switched sides – what about Team USA?
coco – I think there’s a lot of Americans who miss Sergio…but lest we forget, he was an Olympic medalist for SPAIN, so he wasn’t the Americans’ first anyway ;-).
Actually – an Olympic bronze medalist for Spain, but no big difference – the man can coach. Wonder why Spain didn’t try to lure him back? They have a few really talented swimmers, but not a lot of momentum in European waters…
Why not go train with the GB breastrokers, they are certain for GOLD and SILVER in RIO 50, 100 and possible 200. Kevin may have just made the biggest error ever!!!
Why would Singapore leave their number 1 swimmer with Eddie Reece? Surly, they have the best coach in Sergio??? Or should we expect another move soon????
There will not be a 50 breaststroke in Rio. Only 100s and 200s of strokes are in the lineup.
People are too quick to assume Cordes will be surpassed by all the names mentioned above. Let’s not forget he’s still been faster than all them even in Long Course 59.7/2:07.8. Miller was 59.9 and Fink has been 59.8
And he rebounded last year at Pan Pacs with a great medley relay split of 58.64 after disappointing individual performances.
So the talent was there.
His problem is to swim relaxed and to not lose his technique when he has to fight in the last 25 meters of a race.
I meant his goal must be to swim relaxed….
I’ve remarked that his best times went when he swam well ahead with no pression.
Has to learn how to keep his composure when he fights against other swimmers.
I have no clue how this move will effect him hopefully it will have a positive impact on him
Any word if he’s being paid by Singapore to train with their young talent?
I’m assuming Cordes will have all expenses paid plus…