Todd Desorbo on Training Gretchen Walsh: “Slow is not in our vocabulary”

2025 Pro Swim Series – Fort Lauderdale

After Gretchen Walsh re-broke her own 100 fly world record *twice* in Ft Lauderdale, Virginia’s Todd Desorbo spoke with the media. When speaking about what he’s worked on with Walsh, DeSorbo mentioned that he’s encouraged her to take one less stroke on the first 50 of her 100 fly.

Going from 18 to 17 strokes, Walsh asked DeSorbo, “You want me to go slower?” to which DeSorbo replied, “No, slow is not in our vocabulary. I want you to be more patient”.

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Walsh-Madden-Grimes-Weinstein
2 hours ago

Come on, Todd! Let ’em spend time on the beach.

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Last edited 2 hours ago by Walsh-Madden-Grimes-Weinstein
Dressel GOAT
4 hours ago

Alternative headline:

Todd Desorbo on training Katie Grimes:
“Regress is 100% in our vocabulary”

Eddie
Reply to  Dressel GOAT
3 hours ago

what’s your problem

Meeeee
Reply to  Dressel GOAT
3 hours ago

Go read Gretchen’s early story at Virginia and then tell me how it turned out

Walsh-Madden-Grimes-Weinstein
Reply to  Dressel GOAT
1 hour ago

Who won the 200 FR, 500 FR, 1650 FR at the 2021 NCAA DI Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships?

Last 15 Meters
Reply to  Walsh-Madden-Grimes-Weinstein
27 minutes ago

Paige Madden, who coincidentally took her career to the next level after fleeing Charlottesville.

Her performance in Paris was iconic — throwing down an all time top ranking time and giving a scare to two Olympic legends. ♥️😍

Walsh-Madden-Grimes-Weinstein
Reply to  Last 15 Meters
15 minutes ago

60 points.

End of story.

Patrick
Reply to  Dressel GOAT
44 minutes ago

One thing to keep in mind, not all college swimmers, especially girls, get faster in college. What’s the overall body of work look like? You can’t always (or hardly ever) pin one swimmer’s results on the staff alone.

Joel Lin
4 hours ago

Just an observation from the cheap seats – part of the DeSorbo magic seems to be keeping his tone light hearted & his formula includes finding ways to keep it fun.

Swimming can be a monotonous, grueling & at times depressing journey for the athletes. He’s finding ways to help them avoid that.

Last edited 4 hours ago by Joel Lin
Winter Apple
Reply to  Joel Lin
2 hours ago

Which, and this is NOT a knock on him, is much more difficult to do with distance swimming.

Walsh-Madden-Grimes-Weinstein
Reply to  Winter Apple
2 hours ago
SwimSoot
5 hours ago

Lucky coach!

Long Strokes
6 hours ago

He saves that word for the men’s team.

FastSwimming
Reply to  Long Strokes
5 hours ago

Sheeeeeeeeeeeesh

Hswimmer
Reply to  Long Strokes
4 hours ago

I’m still upset Heilman is going there and not Texas or Cal

Eddie
Reply to  Hswimmer
3 hours ago

I think you’re going to be surprised by the men’s team once Heilman and Williamson are there. Desorbo is a good coach obviously, be he also got lucky with talent on the women’s side – and clearly he knows how to work with talent. so you may be eating your words soon!

Walsh-Madden-Grimes-Weinstein
Reply to  Eddie
1 hour ago

Compare the performances of Torri Huske and Gretchen Walsh at the 2021 USA Swimming Olympic Team Trials – Wave II.

Meeeee
Reply to  Long Strokes
3 hours ago

of course they did set an American record 2 years ago. Tell me how many college men’s programs have set American records in the past few years.

Facts needed
Reply to  Long Strokes
2 hours ago

I am honestly intrigued why this happened the past years. The first year for him at UVA saw great results with the men. Is that the recruiting, the culture, or maybe the guys actually need a somewhat different training program?

What
Reply to  Facts needed
1 hour ago

Had some bad eggs on the team who had trouble in previous college stops and with their Club teams in high school.

Troy
6 hours ago

Those are some strong teeth on Desorbo

Swimsy
Reply to  Troy
2 hours ago

Would genuinely like to know his whitening regimen

KeithM
Reply to  Swimsy
1 hour ago

They’re impressive. But he’s no Barry Gibb.

Snowstorm
Reply to  Troy
54 minutes ago

They’re like Ross in Friends-level bright.

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