College teams aren’t the only ones that take Holiday training trips. Two big professional training squads will be headed to the Western United States this week for annual pilgrimages.
David Marsh’s SwimMAC Carolina Team Elite squad, that includes Josh Schneider, Eugene Godsoe, Madison Kennedy, and Nick Brunelli, among others (full roster here), will head to Colorado Springs for some altitude training at the Olympic Training Center. These altitude-training trips are becoming more-and-more popular world-wide, and it seems to be only a matter of time before a major post-grad program populates at an area of altitude (Denver being a good hosting candidate).
They will be joined there by a group from the Fullerton National Centre of Excellence, including Katie Hoff, Ed Moses, Emily Brunemann, Michael Klueh, and Matt McLean, along with coach Jon Urbanchek.
The Cal men’s program also reported to be on their way to Colorado Springs. This includes the post grads like Nathan Adrian and Slovenian sprint breaststroker Damir Dugonjic.
Paul Yetter and his T2 Aquatics group (that includes swimmers like Elizabeth Pelton and Erika Erndl) will also be in Colorado Springs for the weekend. In other words, a good portion of the National Team, along with their teammates, will be there to kick off the new year. Brendan Hansen from Longhorn Aquatics is in town as well.
Update: Open Water star Alex Meyer, already qualified for the Olympics, is also at the OTC, as are Miami (OH), and First Colonoy from the Houston area.
Welsh Swimmers head to SoCal
Meanwhile, the elite training group from Swim Swansea will be headed to the La Mirada Regional Aquatics Centre about 20 miles Southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. This is an annual trip made by the group for warmer climates led by coach Bud McAllister. If anyone has ever been in Great Britain during the winter, its not really much of a surprise that they would want to escape for a few weeks for the warmer climates of Southern California.
Included in this group will be British National Teamers Jemma Lowe, Georgia Davies, Richard Webb, Jazz Carlin, and open water swimmer Tom Allen.
Lowe is the big name of the group – the former Florida All-American is one of Britain’s best medal hopefuls at the Olympics in the 200 fly. Davies is a swimmer to watch, however, as a sprint backstroker. She’s stuck behind a logjam, but with World Record holder Gemma Spofforth struggling last year, it was actually Davies who snagged a spot for Shanghai in the medley relay and snuck below the minute barrier for the first time in her career. At only 21, she’s got the makings of a star for the British team.
The Splash! center at La Mirada was most recently (in)famous for being the host site of Ed Moses’ promo video for his “Against the Tide” documentary on Universal Sports.
There are 6 teams at the OTC- Cal Men, MAC (mostly high schoolers and a couple of pros), FAST, 1st Colony, T2, and Miami (Ohio). There are some individual swimmers too like Alex Meyers and Brendan Hansen.
Georgia Davies actually missed out on the British individual spot in Shanghai but did get the chance to lead the medley relay off. She was also Britains unofficial number one last year on the 100bk with a split of 59.60 en-route to a 200bk time at ASA nationals in June. She, i think will force Spofforth to only swim 200bk in London. And even then, there is a very real threat from Steph Proud and a crop of youngsters (Karley Mann and Georgia Hohmann) both on 2.11’s last year but Hohmann has been quite fast unrested this SC season, about 2 seconds faster than the same point last year and Mann was 2.11 aged 14, similar to Simmonds in 2010.
There is not and money in the 2012 Quad Budget for these Professional and Post Graduate training centers. MAC (Team Elite), NBAC, and FAST are not currently receiving any money from USA-S or USOC for this specific purpose…There are all stand alone functioning teams
You mention Fullerton as a National Centre of Excellence. Do those sites really still exist with support from USA Swimming and do you think they will continue after 2012? There have been mixed reviews on theM, although SwimMac seems to have figured it out and appears to be excelling at all levels of the club, not just the Elite post grads.
Isn’t Nbac going to be there too?
On their site they make it sound like the whole team:
http://www.calbears.com/sports/m-swim/spec-rel/121511aab.html
They will have plenty of company, sounds like FAST is there and some Cal swimmers. Must be a full house
Thanks don – any idea which Cal swimmers specifically will be in town? I’ll add it to the article.