All it would take is someone putting themselves out there. Somebody taking a risk, and doing it. The men that have taken that leap are former Michigan Wolverine, and current USA Swimming National Teamer, Bobby Savulich and Club Wolverine Elite coach Mark Hill, who may just have come up with an idea that is going to revolutionize professional swimming.
From November 16th-17th at Michigan’s Canham Natatorium, Club Wolverine will play host to the first meet in a series that they are calling quite simply “Pro Duel Meet 1.”
Click here for the official meet website.
This is exactly what swimming has been longing for. A high-level, professional dual meet, where points will matter, where every swim by every swimmer will count, where there’s no high school swimmers, no amateurs, nor hoardes of age groupers involved. Just a cut-and-dry showdown of East versus West, all professionals, all of whom swim not only to win, but to make a living.
This meet has taken quite a few hands to put together, but Hill has been labeled as the visionary behind the concept. Hill is the co-Meet Director along with Savulich, who has spear-headed much of the marketing and networking involved in making the meet happen.
Savulich believes that “this meet will bring excitement to our sport in an exciting, intense, and fun atmosphere,” and I couldn’t agree with him more. This first meet will be all male, though Savulich hopes that with increased interest, he will get enough women committed to expand it to a co-ed meet.
“Our mission is to provide a place where professionals can come together and race against the best. We want to bring excitement to the sport!” Savulich said. “We decided to go with this format because Duel Meets are the most exciting type of meet. There is nothing better than two teams going head-to-head as opposed to 1,500 swimmers individually competing at a 5 hour meet. Our meet will feature the best and be fan friendly.”
The event schedule will include all World Championship individual events except for the 800/1500 free and the 400 IM, and each day will be capped with a sprint relay (the 200 medley on Wednesday and the 200 free on Thursday).
Prize money for each event will be as follows:
1st place – $300
2nd place – $150
3rd place – $50
Those are pretty healthy sums for a brand-new meet series in it’s pilot-edition. The enthusiasm of the Club Wolverine meet organizers, along with that prize money and the recognition for just such a series as this, has brought an impressive lineup to Ann Arbor. Below are the list of thus-far confirmed participants, though an invite has been extended to all professional swimmers.
Confirmed Participants:
- Davis Tarwater, USA/SwimMAC, 2005 and 2006 NCAA Champion in the 200 fly for Michigan; Finished 4th at 2005 World Championships in 200 fly
- Clark Burckle, USA/Tucson Ford Aquatics, 2010 NCAA Champion in 200 breaststroke, 2011 Pan Am Games Team member
- Darian Townsend, South Africa/Tucson Ford Aquatics, 2004 Olympic gold medalist in 400 Free Relay, Former World Record Holder 400 Free Relay
- Wu Peng, China/Club Wolverine, 2011 World Championships bronze medalist in the 200 fly
- Kevin Swander, USA/SwimMAC, 2011 USA Swimming silver medalist in the 100 breaststroke, 2009 WUG Champion in the 50 breaststroke
- Matt Patton, USA/Club Wolverine, 2007 Pan Ams Champion in 400 free, 2011 Pan Am Games Team Member
- Nick Brunelli, USA/SwimMAC, 7-time Short Course World Championships Medalist
- Barry Murphy, Ireland/Club Wolverine, Irish National Record Holder in the 100 breaststroke
- Alex Heltand, Norway/Club Wolverine, 2010 World Short Course silver medalist in 50 breaststroke, National Record Holder in 400 medley relay
- Elliott Keefer, USA/SwimMAC, Member of Team USA for 2011 World Championships
- Bobby Savulich, USA/Club Wolverine, 2011 World University Games gold medalist
- Eugene Godsoe, USA/SwimMAC, 2010 NCAA Champion in the 100 back
- Ian Hulme, Great Britain, British National Record Holder (200 free relay SC), English National Record Holder (400 free relay SC)
- Gard Kvale, Norway, Norwegian National Record Holder in 200 IM, 400 IM, 800 Free Relay
Tickets can be purchased to the meet for only 10$ per session, and interested companies can sponsor an event for $500. For more details on sponsorships, or the meet, contact Bobby Savulich at [email protected].
Thanks for the info Braden! There are a lot of girl pros but they seem to be more distance oriented! There are still quite a few pro girls sprinting at least until Trials from what I can tell!
I’m in charge of a pro-am meet down in Oklahoma (this is our 20th Anniversary of the meet) so it’s great to see other teams starting to support our pros! Our meet mixes pros and amateurs but we have great support…enough so that the winner of the 50 Free gets $2400 if they win and break the meet record!!
I think this Pro Swim League is going to be a great addition to the swimming world!
i agree with keeping the meets managable. dual, tri, even quad meets. perhaps this could lead into it’s own championship meet, where the top-24 in each event is selected to participate. q-period is the first day of the previous championship meet; q-time is swimmers best time during q-period; prelims/ finals format over 3.5 days; swimmer may compete in 3 individual events and whatever relays… this could be a great thing.
i think this is a good start. the next evolution would be to create a series of meets, like the GP series, just for the pro swimmers (i am sure this is what is being considered). but let the athletes represent their club teams. that would really make the competition and rivalries better.
additionally, offer all events, incl the 800/1500 and 400 IM. may be not do both long free events at the same meet, but definitely do the 400 IM.
in the end, if more sponsors are able to get on board, not only could there be individual event money, but perhaps team money as well.
All good thoughts 2011. My feeling from talking to Bobby and Mark is that they’re going to try and incorporate much of what you said. They probably avoided the longer events partially because of the timing of the meet – if the commited athletes had no interest in swimming them in early November, then no use putting them on the schedule for only one or two entries.
They’re definitely looking at getting full-club commitments. Their plan is to at some point go to a “Club Wolverine vs. SwimMAC” or “Longhorn Aquatics vs. Trojan Aquatics” type of format, but they really are intent on keeping it as dual meets, because their feeling is (and I tend to agree with them) that… Read more »
From the looks of it here and on the meet website I’m assuming this is a men’s only meet? Anyone have any info on that? Didn’t see any pro girls listed!
Krista – yes, this first edition is a men’s only meet, but Bobby said that they are trying to drum up enough interest to add a women’s meet down the line. If you know of any who are interested, I would have them shoot him a quick email (his addy is at the bottom of the page) and let him know, just so he can get a better feel for where the interest lies.
i had an idea sort of like this, and I’m surprised to see it could be a reality. My idea was a pro team circuit type thing like this. The main difference would be that the teams would be made up by city. For example, a team from LA, a team from Austin, a team from Charlotte, etc. The only problem is making the teams even. Also, i thought the duel meets could be in SCM format and high school event lineups to speed up the meet into a couple hours. The reason for SCM is it could attract foreign athletes and there could also be world records set at the meets. I think these meets could be an exciting… Read more »
Congrats to Savulich for putting this together and, yes, it’s an impressive lineup. Hoping for a smash success and for there to be “Pro Duel Meet 2, etc.” Let’s grow this sport, people!