Anyone following Team SwimMAC Elite’s Twitter account (@SwimMacElite) would have noticed a new face on a recent post; that of Italian breaststroker Lisa Fissneider:
Fissneider is a former Italian record-holder in the 50m and 100m breaststroke events, as well as the winner of both races at the 2011 World Championships in Lima, Peru. She has since been crowned the Italian 50m breaststroke champion in 2013 and was also one of the swimmers who benefited from Russia’s Yuliya Efimova’s medal retractions due to doping, which bumped Fissneider to 4th place in the 200m breaststroke, 5th in the 100m breaststroke, and 7th in the 50m breaststroke at the 2013 European Short Course Championships.
Fissneider tells SwimSwam she will be training with the SwimMAC Elite crew for approximately six weeks, similar to what Hungarian Olympian Laszlo Cseh did last year. Fissneider’s coach, Admir Kajo Kajevic (aka Kajo) is also visiting the Charlotte-based club, as he and coach David Marsh have worked together in the past. In fact, at last year’s Bolzano International meet in November, Coach Kajo was instrumental in transporting swimmers from the airport in Genova to Bolzano, as well as in establishing a network of local drivers to deliver swimmers to the swimming facilities. Many of those swimmers were indeed SwimMAC Elite athletes, including Katie Meili, Mark Weber and Madion Kennedy.
In terms of upcoming events, Fissneider is targeting the Arena Pro Swim Series in Orlando scheduled for February 12-14th and then it is on to Italian Nationals in April where she will attempt to qualify for the 2015 World Championships in Kazan.
last year it was all NBAC. this year the favorite flavor of a team is SwimMac. how times have changed. it is hard to handle all these talents and egos. it will be interesting to see how many have success next year!
The sentence ” *Fissneider *is a former Italian record-holder in the 50m and 100m breaststroke events” is incorrect. As a matter of fact, Lisa Fissneider still holds the Italian short course record in the 50 & 100 m breaststroke events
Thank you – correct, Fissneider still holds the short-course records you mentioned, but none long course.