Cielo Says He Was Just Off Expectations In Orlando, Looks Forward To Maria Lenk

Brazil’s world record-holding sprinter Cesar Cielo said he was a bit off his goal times at the Arena Pro Swim Series at Orlando, but looked forward to the Maria Lenk Trophy next month, where Brazil’s Olympic roster will be finalized.

You can find a full video interview with Cielo (in his native Portuguese) on Globo.com here.

In it, Cielo says his goals for Orlando were to better the times he had swum at the meet in 2014, when he was 22.15 in the 50 free and 49.2 in the 100. Cielo ended up going 22.47 and 49.92 in Orlando.

“Now it is back to training,” a rough translation of Cielo’s interview reads. “Adjust the things you need to adjust for Maria Lenk and get a good result in April.”

Cielo said he’s planning two main training blocks moving forward – one leading up to next month’s Maria Lenk and one moving from there to the Olympics in August. But mentally, he said, he’s trying not to get ahead of himself, focusing on getting better one step at a time.

Now age 29, Cielo will have to overcome some strong young Brazilian sprinters to make the Olympic roster. But Cielo said he’s in a good place physically and feels he is doing better with diet and rest than he has previously in his career.

In the 50 free, Brazil will enter two swimmers in their home Olympic Games. Currently, Bruno Fratus and Italo Duarte lead the hunt for the two spots. Duarte currently holds the second spot at 22.08 – Cielo will have to beat that time at Maria Lenk, plus beat whatever time Duarte puts up, in order to make the Olympic team.

In the 100 free, between 4 and 6 swimmers will earn Olympic berths. Nicolas Oliveira (48.41), Matheus Santana (48.71), Marcelo Chierighini (48.72) and Alan Victoria (48.96) currently hold those spots.

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Uberfan
8 years ago

I truly wish the best for this great man. Practiced with him while he was training with Goodrichs coach. It was amazing to see him, he went 24s and 23s flat start effortlessly, and was a very nice guy

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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