4-time Olympic medalist Simone Manuel turned pro after the 2018 NCAA Championships. The TYR Pro Swim Indy was her debut, and she launched her pro career by donating her winnings from the event to the ALS Foundation in honor of her great aunt.
Simone’s balancing school work and her new pro career, and she was honest about the challenges–something you don’t always hear from swimmers. Pro swimming is a different lifestyle. It takes up more time and energy than most athletes realize. It’s clear, however, from the interview Simone’s sober about her future.
No word on what swimwear company she will sign with, but Simone is a brand-maker, or, if the brand is already established, she will impact their sales positively. Simone is a big-meet swimmer, winning when it counts the most. See more on this topic here.
PREDICTIONS? Simone’s improved year over year since 2016. I’d like to see best times at U.S. Nationals and/or Pan Pacific Championships this summer:
- 50m free – 23.79
- 100m free – 51.99
- 200m free – 1:56.1
I think that will be enough for Simone to sweep the 50-100m free at Pan Pacific Championships. What do you think?
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This is a Gold Medal Media production presented by SwimOutlet.com. Host Gold Medal Mel Stewart is a 3-time Olympic medalist and the co-founder of SwimSwam.com, a Swimming News website.
How fast will she swim? Bout 5 mph.
It’s a shame that Simone and Sarah S. and Cate don’t race more often. Simone has shown her competitive mettle in the Big Races and won the gold medals.
Cate swam against Sarah the summer of 2017 when Cate was just “staying wet” and not training all out. But I think those races added some “fuel to the fire” that propelled Cate to a WR in the 100 SCM free, and then a 23.78 50 free gold at the Comm Games. Also that blazing 51.00 anchor leg in the 400 free relay.
Simone doesn’t care about times. She cares about winning titles. And she does it. Current 100 free olympic and world champion. She steps up when she needs to do it. She wants to touch first. The times will come then naturally. By the way the idea of adding the 200 free to her schedule in a major international compeition would be a very bad idea. To beat Sjöström or the Campbell sisters you need to be the freshest possible. She can swim the 200 free just for the relay. I’m a big fan of Simone Manuel. She’s a beautiful, smart and very talented young woman and represents USA in a great way.
Did we not just go through this with Caeleb Dressel? American swimmers are much different than other swimmers. They aren’t soft and don’t get fatigued with racing…thanks to NCAA swimming
hahahahhahaha. Agreed, sort of. The NCAA experience does matter a lot — make Team USA Athletes tough as heck. I think Dressel is a different animal. I also think Troy’s historic training opens the door to the 2-free for Dressel, and Dressel is building a big margin on competitors….. Simone 2-free? Sure, I’d like to see it, but 4×200 free makes more sense…. I’m a bit shaky on this opinion, shaky on doubting Simone at whatever she aims to achieve. I’d like to see what Simone does in Irvine.
up vote. Agreed. Simone swims to win. I do think times are secondary when you’re among the top 8 in the world. It’s all about getting your hand on the wall first at the big shave meet. That’s it. (Why 29 down votes?) Not sure about the 4×200 free v swimming 2-free individually. I can’t imagine a 50-100 sprinter wanting to swim (or planning to swim) 200 free three times at the Olympic Games in 2020.
Re sprinter swimming 200 free 3 times, see Sjostrom in 2016. . .and then never again! (And the elevation of her sprinting post-2016). It’s a shame though because I will go out on a limb and say she has more potential in 200 free than even Ledecky with her ideal speed and endurance combo. Perhaps Ruck is the one to follow.
Bobo you are one of my favorite commenters on here but must you go off the deep end endlessly with this need to stay fresh jargon. Yes there is a time and place to save energy but some swimmers like proving how well rounded they are plus maybe Simone has big plans for 2020. If she proves herself in the 200 that almost guarantees another relay medal. With the added mixed relays she could have a huge medal haul.
Cate Campbell may have something to say about that, although the Aussies usually choke at big meets.
The Aussie general public aren’t too interested in Pan Pacs though, Commonwealths is much bigger for them in these years, so that might take some pressure off the Aussies.
and there will be at least 2 super Us sprinters in that final to put pressure on the Aussies
true….very true.
I think Cate has a lot to prove, AND the competition is closer to her TIMELINE in Japan. That matters. It can impact an elite’s performance. I did consider those factors making the Simone prediction, but I’m sticking with the believe that Simone steps up when it matters.
I thought that you are making absurd predictions just to draw readers’ attention and to ignite the discussion. But after you predicted that Simone would win world title at the time when Sjostrom was unstoppable in improving of her insane personal bests and when many considered that she would bounce back to low 53 after lucky 52.7 then I changed my opinion about your predictions. Let’s see if it was a lucky coincidence.
I did not realize the author of the article needed your stamp of approval.
well replied …..Yozhik can go off the boundaries at time
The poster in question predicted that Katie Ledecky would never post a personal best in any event after the 2017 FINA World Championships, yet completely disregarded her performance in the women’s 1650 freestyle on Nov 18, 2017.
Now you know 😀
Dressel has beaten my predictions every time…. Regarding Simone, she’s just a big meet swimmer. She should improve this summer, but a mid-quad year could be a downer. She could be in transition from college to pro life and that takes a toll. You never know….. I do make a few calls to folks I consider swim analysts with their eyes tight on the action/data, the athletes’ training habits. You know, we all make predictions around the Olympics, and often times Olympic finals are a lot slower. I’ve been way off a few times….and then there was that time I said Phelps would swim 1:53 200m fly and a lot people said I was crazy, stretching too much. Phelps swam… Read more »
I still think my favorite is you predicting Simone winning Worlds in the 100 in 52.2 and everyone (me included) thought that was crazy, especially after everything Sjostrom did. It would be normal for Simone to be flat or a tad slower this summer, but based off the past two years I can’t see her not throwing down something special in the 100.
How often do you confer with USA Swimming Russell Mark?
Is it normal for a swimmer like Simone (or Ledecky and Dressel for that matter) to not have chosen a suit sponsorship yet? The only swimmer of that caliber that I can recall turning pro is Missy and if i recall correctly she announced she was with Speedo fairly quickly (wasn’t really paying attention before her)
Never take the first offer you get. You gotta squeeze everything out of these companies. Missy was probably an exception. She was the media darling, had a great Olympics and worlds, Phelps on the downturn…Speedo probably have her a motherload offer that she could t refuse (yikes on speedo’s Part)
Takes time to decide, and it’s a big decision. My guess is their deals will be 6-8 years min. That’s a biz marriage. I think we’ll get these announcements by US Nats or Pan Pacs when media attention is the most robust.
There’ll be a lot of strain on the marketing departments who negotiate these contracts too with 3 such big names all in play at once, many specialist swimwear companies won’t have the marketing staff to comfortably handle 3 big negotiations like that at once in the same way a sportswear brand could.
There might also be factors stemming from all 3 being involved. If, for example, a Nike or Adidas decided it would bust the bank to get all 3, but there wasn’t the same value in only 1 or 2, if 2 agreed terms but 1 couldn’t get there, the brand pulls all the deals and the other 2 are back on the market.
I hope all three….Katie, Simone, and Dressel are going after that Nike money. . That Nike money pays the bills. 💰
….very true. Slows the process way down. There’s a rumor someone is signing with an announcement this weekend. No one (repeat: no brand or elite athlete is talking). Still, it’d be interesting/fun if someone announced over the SC PSS weekend. We’ll see soon enough.
Good question! Braden???
There’s a lot of complication here. In certain situations, depending on who covered their costs of travelling to and competing in the meet, amateur swimmers can accept money to cover those expenses (some swimmers get free travel from their schools, or from USA Swimming if they’re on the National Team).
USA Swimming doesn’t declare what happens to event prize money for athletes who after all of the above can’t accept it. The assumption is they just keep it – for example, if prize money is forfeited for an anti-doping violation, it returns to USA Swimming. That’s the best indication we get. I would guess that through creative accounting, there’s not much prize money that’s turned down.
The $10,000 series… Read more »
I think the purse will be going up over 2019-20. I don’t know. That’s a guess, but it’s a question I’ve meant to ask this year… After years of development, I’d like to see what the BASE thinks about pushing the TYR PRO SWIM to new levels. Swim-fans have their ideas, which are not always the same as the GOV BODY….. I’d like to see the TYR PRO SWIM become the $1,000,000 TYR PRO SWIM. I think you could get to that # faster than most people realize–between real purse dollars, cost to get athletes to the events, etc. I wonder if you can make that claim (a “marketing claim”) with all DOLLARS INVESTED–funneled to the elite athletes on the… Read more »
The only thing you can know for sure is that she will be on the medal podium when it counts.