SwimSwam sat down with Braden Holloway, the head coach of the NC State Wolfpack and head coach of Team USA at the World Championships in Singapore this summer. Holloway unpacks in detail the highs and lows from this team trip, from the excitement of training camp firing on all cylinders to managing the sudden contraction of a team-wide virus.
From traveling to Singapore to making relay decisions on the fly and trying to keep morale high, Holloway gives an honest and open recollection of a World Championships that, despite adversity, still saw the USA top the medal table.
In the SwimSwam Podcast dive deeper into the sport you love with insider conversations about swimming. Hosted by Coleman Hodges and Gold Medal Mel Stewart, SwimSwam welcomes both the biggest names in swimming that you already know, and rising stars that you need to get to know, as we break down the past, present, and future of aquatic sports.
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Opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the interviewed guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the hosts, SwimSwam Partners, LLC and/or SwimSwam advertising partners.
I’m not going to blame anyone for strange things that happen, it was a wildly odd occurrence. I do however sincerely hope they do a good investigation on what the proper protocols should be for international team meets.
Unfortunately there is no leadership currently at USA swimming which leaves a gaping hole in managing this risk. Coaches that were on and will be on teams in the future all have full time careers and USA swimming should be leading the charge on establishing the correct way to handle travel/illness risk (while still maintaining a good enjoyable environment).
These coaches, while I’m sure are doing their best to handle all of the challenges, are best at coaching the swimming… Read more »
Yeah, it would be interesting to know what in the way of investigating is or will go on. In general, there’s a very passive, “this happened to us” framing by the players involved, here included. There’s no “these are the things we did that put us in a position where this could happen to us.” It’s disingenuous.
There’s not going to be any investigation. Nobody wants to do all that. There probably should be, but you’re spot on with the “aww shucks, this happened to us” attitude.
Which to be fair is exactly the approach the athletes should take. It’s not their job to investigate what happened. Everyone has a role in a functional organization.
Sabotage! Putin! Undercover agents! Clearly not the elephants.
Interesting that the decisions to swim were left up to the coaches and the athletes. The team physician should be the one responsible for that and take the heat with an organized press conference. The athletes who are sick need to be quarantined and isolated to allow them to get better and prevent a public health incident which this became. Athletes with Traveler’s Diarrhea who are actively vomiting or have diarrhea should not be in a pool potentially infecting others until 48 hours after symptoms are gone. That is public health 101 that the team doctor and the facility should have been enforcing no matter how “tough” or “resilient” the athletes are…
As This Guy said, that is a… Read more »
Best post of all🔼🔼🔼🔼 🔼
Relays we should have won:
Women’s 400 free and mens 800 free relay
I thought Hobson would win 200 free but in no way was he the favorite. Same could be said for Finke in the 1500 (he was the favorite but not after that 800).
So potentially left 4 golds on the table
Also women’s 800 free relay.
Men’s 800 free relay is definitely at least a medal and they should have won at least one of the 400 free relay on the first day
Oh well. Many other country’s swimmers were affected by the illness too (thanks USA).
So many “if only”.
I’d love to see a healthy Sam Short in 2024 and 2025 and see how many medals he would have got. Or a healthy ZSC in 2024! Or a healthy Pallister in 2024. We could go on forever with this game.
Swimmers from other countries were also ill thanks to American swimmers.
So why didn’t you account for those?
I shared my opinion coming in yo the meet what I would have expected (not accounting for health).
Every gold we won really wasn’t a surprise and most events we didn’t win golds in also wasn’t a surprise.
If I was being optimistic pre meet I would have pencilled team USA from 11-13 golds. 9 golds seems about where the should have been if not quite firing on all cylinders.
Despite most of the illnesses, almost all of the big names showed up and performed well from all countries.i am not making excuses for USA or anyone with my observations.
for those disappointed in the USA performance at worlds-
try going 4 days without water, food, living on a toilet, and losing 12 pounds!
now go try swimming your fastest 200 freestyle.
ready for the challenge rowdy, ryan, and michael?
I agree but even if everyone would have gone best times, we wouldn’t have won very many medals.
Can anyone name a list of all the extra medals USA would have won if our swimmers went their Trials times at Worlds?
2 women’s 50 free medals. (Including gold)
1 women’s 50 breast medal.
For starters
Just based purely on trials times. I checked these races.
Off the top of my head
Medal contenders:
Torri – 100 fly (silver/bronze)
Claire – 400 free (bronze)
Women’s 4×100 free (gold)
Women’s 4×200 free (gold)
USA mixed medley (silver)
Comment gone
no way was Claire going 3.58
considering how good her trials was while not fully tapered and that she went a pb in the 200 free while pretty sick i wouldnt rule it out.
Almost none of the US team beat their trials times in Paris and Fukuoka so pretty unlikely they would have done that even if completely healthy anyway
@Braden Keith request for article lol. counterfactual medals with us trials times replicated or pbs replicated
Sigh y’all just don’t want me to enjoy my holiday weekend. Okay fine we’ll do it.
thank you <3
You softie Braden 😊
In the meantime, here’s how Gretchen Walsh’s 54.60 100 fly WR would fare in the men’s event at the Olympics, starting in 1968 (its inaugural appearance):
1968: Gold (55.9 is the actual winning time)
1972: Silver (54.27 by Mark Spitz wins gold)
1976: Bronze (just behind 54.35 and 54.50)
1980: Gold (54.92 by Par Arvidsson is the actual winning time)
1984: 6th (Still makes the A final and beats American Matt Gribble)
1988: 10th (Makes B final and gets 2nd place there)
1992: 14th (Makes B final and gets 2nd place; Gold Medal Mel was 54.04 in A final)
1996: 23rd (Still beating a bunch of Olympians from Brazil, Italy and Finland, but… Read more »
We don’t care
It seems that a majority of us do. Neat set of stats, imo
Full respect to everyone on the team!! One question: going forward would they consider getting a private chef to ensure meals are prepared properly and ingredients are better sourced? Cycling has that, golfers, etc all have private chefs going into important competitions.
That could be a good idea, but you can get food illnesses or noro anywhere even from the top chefs and restaurants.
Most of these issues are due to improper handling of food. Having a private chef that ensures that the food is handled properly, that it is cooked thoroughly, and that vegetables and fruits are disinfected (for example) would reduce the chances of this happening. Going to a buffet where people infected with the virus handle the food is a huge risk.
Yeah and I think people overestimate what “private chef” means. These don’t have to be the guys you pay $600/hour + food costs to put on a show when you want to impress your neighbors. There are “private chefs” who are essentially just traveling caterers. There are many who even specialize in this kind of scenario, where food safety is super important.
“Foodborne illnesses” can also be spread at first by food and then later by other means (namely, poop all over the place, which is why they don’t want you swimming in public pools if you have diarrhea).
Exactly. It can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, for example. In public pools the problem is that chlorine doesn’t act instantaneously, so there’s a risk that it could help with the spread, but I’m not sure how that compares with, for example, grabbing the railing of a staircase after an infected individual has done so previously (if they didn’t wash their hands very thoroughly).
Yes, it can still happen, but it’s much less likely.
I should mention that most if not all intestinal and food borne illness are caused by bacteria and not virus.
Yeah, but the noravirus is a common virus that can cause “food poisoning” and is highly contagious. In any case, proper food handling, including thoroughly cooking meats and disinfecting fruits and vegetables, can prevent this. I know because I grew up in a country where even the locals would disinfect vegetables to avoid infection.
norovirus, enterovirus. rotovirus cause severe intestinal illness
True. UCI (cycling federation) is about to have world championship in Rwanda, so we will be able to see how many pro cyclists end up with food borne diseases before the chase for the rainbow jerseys.
They can’t even hire a CEO they’re hardly getting Gordon Ramsay on retainer
They don’t need Ramsey. They can just reach out to any of the professionals athletes like golfers and cyclists.
Also I think sponsors like Arena, TYR, Speedo, Omega, etc will be more than likely to recommend and partially pay for a private chef. They sponsor these athletes and probably want them to do well in their gears. So it would make sense to them to help out to ensure the athletes are in top form when they get up on those blocks.
Aren’t some of these companies dropping swimmers now though? Like TYR with Huske.
Tori is with Deboer. No idea if she left them or if they dropped her.
As one who grew up as an American in India in the 1950ies I can say one never ate any vegetables that were not cooked. Fresh fruit could only be eaten after it was first washed in a antibacterial solution and then peeled. Only raw veggies were those that were grown in our own garden. So yes when in Asia one has to take extreme precautions. Especially no salads!
didn’t anyone watch Regan Smith’s interview? They had to pay their own way to Indianapolis … do you think they would fork (pun intended) over money for a chef?
Mad respect to the coaching staff and swimmers who fought through hell that week. Image the medal count otherwise.
Moving forward, indoor pools with less gallivanting around at training camps is their best bet for success.
Indoor pools? Do you really think swimming outdoors is too distracting?
Ikr.
US Olympic and Worlds teams always had staging camp in locations with outdoor pools, it’s summer and the weather is nice, why would you swim indoor.
And it’s always worked out well for them.
Australia had staging camp in 2016 at Auburn with indoor pool. Guess what happened to them in Rio.
Respect for them to pretend their illnesses were food poisoning so they could ignore safety regulations and selfishly swim while infecting other people and ruining a years worth of work? Go USA!
Yeah that was not a food borne illness the way it was spreading. Not sure why they assume that
Selfishly swims and yet there are a swimmers from other country also getting infected from US and they still swimming despite not fully healthy and we gonna praised them .
Not much choice when these athletes have paid sponsors. I know it looks bad to the rest of the world but when your livelihood is on the line, you are going to choose to do your job/swim and do the absolute best you can under any circumstances. USA swimming covers the cost of the meet, but making an international team and not competing isn’t going to help you keep doing this.
ok now I understand. For US athletes money is more important than other peoples health…..
Yes, because nothing stops in a virus like an enclosed humid building universally known for really poor air circulation.
The actual medal count would have been mostly the same, even if everyone was healthy.
-Tommy Janton and Jack Aikins aren’t going sub-52 ever.
-Rex Maurer and Luka Mijatovic aren’t going 3:42 in the 400 free, at least not at this stage of their development.
-Shaine Casas did well in 1 event and underperformed in all of the others, which has always been the case with him.
-Michael Andrew hasn’t had a single good international performance since Budapest 2022, when he won silver in the 50 free.
-Carson Foster has also been declining for a while, but people don’t like to point that out for some reason.
Walsh may have gotten a medal in the 50… Read more »
I guess if everyone is healthy then Gretchen Walsh probably gonna be in the relay on the first day and US probably win that and US also finish on the podium if Carson Foster didn’t injured his ankle a day before the 4×200
If healthy the women win both free relays. Gold vs silver. No impact on total medals but big impact on Golds. Even if just Huske or GW were 100% they win 4×100.
lets be honest. US havent matched trials times in major comps in heaps of events. The womens relay are maybes, not guaranteed. When was the last time they beat Aus in a Womens 4 x100 free relay
Maurer could have gone 3:42. Finke underperformed imo.
douglass outperformed her expectations. maybe not in terms of medal count, but definitely in times. as did smith, actually.
If we’re talking theoretical medal count changes, there’s a few relays that likely would have placed higher and maybe 1 or 2 they could have won if all were healthy. Finke in the 1500 was a missed gold opportunity as well
I agree with your summary other than Finke and relays. Those were impacted.
Historically, a primary reason for outdoor training camps is the body appears to acclimate quicker to the local time zone. I have to believe an outdoor setting is superior to an indoor setting for air circulation / prevention of transmission of illness, etc..
To satisfy both sides of this argument, train in one of those hotel pools that are half inside and half outside.