Below was submitted by D’Artagnan Dias, SwimSwam’s Brazilian correspondent and a resident of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This year has further demonstrated the rise of a nation’s talent within the sport of swimming, a nation typically known for two standout male swimmers: Cesar Cielo and Thiago Pereira. nor even their best allies Felipe Franca and Nicholas Dos Santos. We are talking about the unknown (for many readers) side of Brazilian Swimming: the women.
Let’s go back in time a bit: the Olympic year is 2004, and in the final of 400meter individual medley is Joanna Maranhão, only 17 years-old, who would finish in 5th with 4:40.00: a Brazilian record that still has not been broken to this day.
Fast-forward to December 7th, 2014: Etiene Pires Medeiros becomes the first Brazilian woman to win a medal (of any type) in a World Championships, and better than that, she did so in World Record fashion in the 50 meter backstroke. What happened between the swims of Maranhao, the highest place ever of a Brazilian woman in swimming at the Olympics, and Medeiros, the best conquest ever? Let’s dig in.
In Brazil, swimming is far from the national sports preference, and there are states without a 50-meter pool.. Worse than that, there are local swimming federations without online records who still do manual registration for local meets. Some of those federations are heavily in debt and rely on CBDA (Brazilian Aquatics Sports Federation) support to barely stay alive.
Besides those challenges facing all parts of swimming, there are two cultural and an economic challenge specifically for the advancement of women’s swimming in body-obsessed Brazil.
The first cultural aspect is fear of ‘masculinization’ of female swimmers. They fear the myth that swimming will leave women with a broad-shouldered “T-shape” body. I know of at least one case where a promising young girl refused to train butterfly sets because she believed that it would broaden her shoulders, shrink her breasts, and affect her menstrual cycle. These fears may be misplaced, but they are still very real for a large portion of the population.
The second cultural aspect is linked to (and many times is the cause) of the first one: seeking easier training. Two, sometimes three, hours of pool training plus dryland scares a lot of kids (and many parents!) In the past, a sprinting approach (low yardage, high weights at a young age) was used to attract more kids to swimming, but the problem is that some big young names shine during a very short period of time, and we never hear that name again after their junior years. That affects boys too, but it isn’t uncommon to see a parent arriving with a 12-year old girl and decide not to join a team after seeing a 14-year old with the body of an adult and too many muscles on display.
The good news is that this mentality is changing, and many coaches are now giving longer training sets in the pool and only light weight work for swimmers under 14, and growing that until the swimmer is around 16-or-17-years old.
They are delaying the decision to specialize in an event and that too is attractive for young minds. This delay means that when swimmers begin doing the heavy lifting that will develop more muscles, they have a more mature mindset, and the superficial fears of their childhoods evaporate.
Matheus Santana, 100 free junior world record holder, didn’t begin heavy dry land training sets until sixteen, and we know how good of a choice that turned to be. Years ago, he would have started much earlier.
The economic aspect affects all women in Brazil: in the same profession, they are very underpaid compared to men, by some regards as much as 40%, and swimming is no different. This means that female swimmers have to rely on side jobs, ironically often modeling given the aforementioned fears, to earn more money. In the recent past, it was rare to hear about a female swimmer talking about becoming a professional, and now it is a common conversation. The government is contributing this effort by providing grants to top athletes, male or female, now.
Let’s stop and talk about the data surrounding Brazil’s rankings in the 100m and 200m free events in 2005 (post-Olympic year), during 2009 (shiny suit era), and present time (2014).
100m freestyle top 3 Brazilian women:
FLAVIA DELAROLI-CAZZIOLATO 56.92
REBECA BRAGA L GUSMAO 57.06
TATIANA LEMOS DE LIMA 57.33
Topunder18(17 years-old or younger):MANUELLALYRIO with 57.81 (Difference from SA Record: +2.03
200m freestyle top 3 Brazilian women:
MONIQUE ANDRADE FERREIRA 2:03.39
MANUELLA LYRIO 2:03.55
MARIANA N BROCHADO 2:03.59
Top under18:MANUELLA LYRIO with 2:03.55 (Difference from SA Record:+2.38)
2009
100m freestyle top 3 Brazilian women:
TATIANA LEMOS DE LIMA 54.72
DAYNARA L FERREIRA PAULA 55.16
FLAVIA DELAROLI-CAZZIOLATO 55.24
TopUnder18:GIULIANAGIGLIOTTI with 56.78 (SA Record +2.06)
200m freestyle top 3 Brazilian women:
MONIQUE A FERREIRA 1:59.78
TATIANA LEMOS DE LIMA 2:01.26
ISABELLE FRANCA LONGO 2:02.49
Top Under 18:SARAH G CORREA with 2:03.40 (SA Record + 3.62)
2014
100m freestyle top 3 Brazilian women:
LARISSA MARTINS OLIVEIRA 54.87
GRACIELE HERMANN 54.94
DAYNARA L FERREIRA PAULA 55.80
Top under 18:GABRIELE GONCALVES RONCATTO with 56.00 (SA Record + 1.28)
Top under 18:GIOVANNA TOMANIK DIAMANTE with 2:01.16 (SA Record +1.64)
We can see a clear tendency of lowering the gap between junior swimmers and South American records and there’s more overall depth. For instance, Tatiana Lemos in 2009 was a sprinter, adding sometimes filling in on a 4 x 200 relay, and Manuella Lyrio is a specialist 200-400 free swimmer. Among the younger swimmers above Roncatto is an impressive breaststroker who now can add “100-200free specialist” to her resume, while Diamante is a flyer who swims 100 and 200 free events – demonstrating the more versatile youth. It is still unknown if Roncatto and Diamante will become only freestylers in a near future as they are only 16 and 17 years-old, respectively.
If you track the 100m freestyle event specifically, a very interesting phenomenon is happening: One generation is “eating” the other almost leapfrogging each other. The two top of ‘Junior1’ category (Born 1997) are Diamante (56.06) and Andressa Lima (with 56.35) with the top of ‘Youth2’ (Born 1998) beating Diamante, and the second of ‘Youth2’ (Sarah Marques with 56.24) beating the second of ‘Junior1.’
Now, let’s come back a bit to when Diamante and Rocatto were in ‘Children2’ category (14years-old). In the 100 free, Diamante was 59.47 in the 100m free (in 2011) and Roncatto was 58.63 (in 2012). The new queen in Children2 category is Rafaela Raurich with 57 flat made last week – even faster than her predecessors. In other words: by pushing swimmers less to perform as world-class sprinters at a young age, Brazilian coaches have ironically made the overall level of young sprinters better (probably largely an improvement in the talent pool).
Just for a direct comparison, the new American sprint star Abbey Weitzeil was 57.14 at 14 years-old.
We can not even compare Diamante and Roncatto’s 200 free times at 14 with Raurich’s recent 2:03.86 at the same age. Both were in 2.07 mid’s at fourteen years-old. Around four years ago, it really was hard to look at the all-top 100 lists in American swimming and seeing that a top Brazilian girls time wasn’t even close to becoming a top 100 entry. Now it is easy to see some names capable of reaching top 50 and even top 25 in American lists.
Raurich’s times would be 22th and 47th (100 and 200 free), as an example of how much the younger Brazilian generation is improving, Aricia Peree, 12 years-old, with her 2:07.50 in 200 free last week, would put her in 16th in the11-12 category. We are far from seeing a Brazilian women’s team capable of worrying powerhouses like Australia and the USA, but at the same time we should not be surprised if we hear some big names in a very near future.
Believe the title should be “What a DIFFERENCE…”