Emergent Strategy? Meghan Small Goes No Pullouts In SEC Record 200 IM

2019 SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

As Tennessee continues to surge at the SEC Championships, their women are also continuing to defy conventional wisdom when it comes to breaststroke pullouts. A day after Nikol Popov skipped her second pullout on the breaststroke leg of the 200 medley relay, fellow Vol Meghan Small passed up both breaststroke pullouts in the 200 IM, going on to win the event and set a new SEC meet record.

Race video clearly shows Small (in the white cap, fourth from the bottom in the video below) skipping the breaststroke pullouts, and, shockingly, swimming away from Texas A&M’s Sydney Pickremthe conference’s best 200 breaststroker:

(Skip to about :58 in the video if it starts from the beginning)

Small appears to do only a big, powerful dolphin kick off of each wall, with no arm pull or breaststroke kick before she breaks the surface. The emergent strategy would conceivably give up the power of the arm pull-down, but also gets rid of the dreaded ‘dead spot’ in a breaststroke pullout – when the arms are recovering back over one’s head and momentum stops almost entirely before the breaststroke kick.

Pickrem has won the last two SEC titles in the 200 breaststroke, so it’s hard to argue that her pullouts are making Small’s strategy look better than it really is. Though Pickrem ultimately outsplits Small 32.0 to 32.5, Small ultimately betters her own split from SECs last year (33.0) by a fair margin. And visually, she clearly swims away from Pickrem early in the leg, as Pickrem is underwater and Small already on the surface swimming.

This isn’t an entirely new trend for Tennessee. Volunteer alum Molly Hannis made the 2016 U.S. Olympic team in the 200 breast by skipping her final pullout at U.S. Olympic Trials. Hannis was 4th at the 150 wall, but had the field’s best final split (by half a second, no less) to pass up Bethany Galat and Micah Sumrall for the Olympic spot. We interviewed Hannis and her coach, Bret Lundgaard, about the strategic decision, and you can read their 2016 commentary here.

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Kuta
5 years ago

Pull-downs?

Seems the tradeoff is more oxygen intake for less stroke efficiency. Maybe this is better for “good” freestylers.

THEO
5 years ago

I regret never trying this while I was still racing. I think that for me it would have been a great decision for the 4IM, maybe also 2IM. I definitely buy into the idea that this is an under-used option for swimmers more generally.

Jimbo
5 years ago

My coach would beat me if I ever tried this

BaldingEagle
5 years ago

Is Bill Boomer still with UT? Is this one of his innovations? He also came up with top-arm first stroke in free and back.

SaintJoseph
Reply to  BaldingEagle
5 years ago

No Coach Tyler did at WHSC in 1960s!!!

Blueface
5 years ago

It’s blueface babyyy… yeahaight

Good swim yeahaight

Dan
5 years ago

The article says Small “swam away rom Pickrem”…Small split 32.5/Pickrem spilt 32.0. I’m not saying the strategy of no pullouts wasn’t good for Small (Small was way closer than she “should” have been in that split), just not really accurate to say that she swam away from Pickrem.

Admin
Reply to  Dan
5 years ago

It actually says “early in the race” after the part you’re referencing, which is accurate. What you said sort of reinforces the point – Pickrem is clearly a better breaststroker than Small, but Small had a big advantage in the early part of the race, where she skipped the pullout.

mxskier
5 years ago

This is interesting in that this was likely not an issue or consideration before the butterfly kick rule was put into place. The dead zone as noted above was not likely as big a consideration since the maintenance of the speed from the wall by the pull likely overshadowed it. But now the ability to generate a second force moment without breaking streamline makes sense to skip that brief pause.

swimmer!
5 years ago

One of my old teammates used to not pull out. We kept telling him it was a pretty risky strategy, but he contended that it was worth it. He said it felt way better than the conventional pull out.

The Ready Room
Reply to  swimmer!
5 years ago

Is he a father now?

Yabo
Reply to  The Ready Room
5 years ago

ohjeez

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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