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SwimSwam visited UVA and filmed a few different workouts while there. This was the last one – a Tuesday PM threshold special. On Tuesday afternoons, associate head coaches Blaire Bachman and Tyler Fenwick combine their groups and gut out a ‘red’ set (referencing Jon Urbancek’s color chart).
This set featured Olympians Paige Madden and Emma Weyant, and over the course of the set the two of them were going head-to-head the entire time. By the end of it, I was convinced that Paige Madden might be one of the best trainers I’ve ever seen (swimming, kicking, pulling, you name it, she can go fast at it) and Emma Weyant might not be far behind her. See their main set below:
3x
6/5/4×200 (by rd) @ 2:30 RED
1:00 Rest 100 @ 1:40 BLUE (Free)
2×50 @ 1:10 BLUE (Stroke)
50 @ 1:30 EZ
After watching most of the Red set, I did catch a peek at what Todd DeSorbo‘s sprint crew was up to that day (See full sprint workouts with Todd here). I only caught the tail end, where they were doing a few 100s kick fast. But speedsters Kate Douglass and Gretchen Walsh certainly made it worth the trip to the other end of the pool, both dipping under 1:00 on a 100 kick from a push at the end of the workout.
looking forward to seeing the hard work of these girls come to fruition this week! CANNOT WAIT 🙂 go hoos
Not Desorbo yelling at someone for taking a poop at 4:17
When are we going to get a Tyler Fenwick ‘GTL’ practice video?
Fun stuff. I miss college swim practices . . . not.
Emma is clearly a big taper swimmer. Excited to see what she will do this week!
The times are amazing – the women doing repeated push off times in practice that would have won many of the men’s college dual meets back in my days! Wonder what swimmers will be doing in another 50 years?
Hey look, ANOTHER UVA practice..
I do not know if I should up vote or down vote? I would hate for an upvote to seem like I was endorsing complaining about great swimming content. I also don’t want a down vote to seem like I don’t want to see this great content.
Thank you swimswam and Coleman for your great work. Thank you UVA for sharing the work you do. Sharing opinions, data, information, and ideas is how the sport keeps progressing.
i love how open UVA is to swimswam coming in and filming practices and interviews with their swimmers and coaches!
Yeah, I think your beef might be with other coaches who aren’t into giving the media such access to their program. I’m sure swimswam would be willing to visit other schools. You also have the option to just scroll past content you’re not into.
Things Virginia coaches do:
1) Always respond to our texts and emails quickly.
2) Never respond with “let me get back to you next week on that” or “I can comment on that after the end of the meet.”
3) Always have an open door
4) Flexible to do whatever we want when we show up for practice
5) Don’t hide things when we ask for comments on news stories
6) Do creative and interesting things
And so they wind up getting a lot of coverage.
There’s about a 99% chance that your favorite program/coach doesn’t act that way. In fact, there’s about a 99% chance that your favorite program/coach doesn’t even check half of… Read more »
LOVE the transparency!
Behave accordingly? Really? So as long as an elite program “kisses the ring” and panders to SS wants and desires they get all the free publicity you choose to dish out? Seems fair. Good to know the rules.
Come on Buckeyboy – behave accordingly!
I get why you’d read it that way. But that’s exactly the attitude that is preventing swimming from growing. It’s this old school “I’d rather complain than do anything or change my expectations to actually grow the sport” mentality.
What do you expect us to do? Sneak into your practices and film from beneath the bleachers? Hack into the coaches’ emails to get answers to questions?
It’s a pragmatic expectation, and it’s one that is the norm in the ‘big sports.’ There’s a limit to how much content we can just make up if coaches and SIDs don’t help us and forbid their athletes from speaking to us.
Nobody has to work with us, nobody has to be open with… Read more »
I think I speak for most SwimSwam readers when I say I appreciate the volume of content you all put out and the effort that you all put into that content.
I love seeing what elite swimmers can do in practice, regardless of what college program they are affiliated with.
The swimming community is REALLY lucky we have a media outlet as on top of it as SwimSwam is. I check SwimSwam at least 10x a day and there’s always new articles – so many other niche sports don’t have this.
Imagine the clicks you could get if you did sneak into practices. I think filming beneath the bleachers might be a safesport issue though…
Lol why does Ohio State so consistently have little brother syndrome in these comments?
Bro, you’re exactly the kind of person he’s talking about lolol. Stop tryna fight everyone and just be an adult. Act like you like swimming, don’t be mad about swimming 100% of the time.
because, they have been Michigan’s little brother for decades….
Tell me you missed the point without telling me you missed the point.
There’s finally a media outlet that covers swimming the way it should be covered, and y’all still come here every day wanting to brawl.
Can’t wait to see the buckeyeboy tears when college swimming dies because nobody cares enough about it to save it in the new world of college athletics.
You completely missed the point, but glad you have your own opinion.
How is that possibly what you got from that comment? “Allow us to capture content and we will publish it” is “kissing the ring”? I don’t really understand where you’re coming from
They filmed our program and we are far from elite. We did get a lot of visibility and picked up several partnerships along the way.
hell, they even said ‘poop’ on camera…..
It’s important for these top college swimmers to get the exposure and practice in speaking to media so if they do decide to swim professionally after college, they are a good interview.
Alex Walsh is one of my favorites to watch/listen to because of her openness in her training and her ability to storytell. This sets her apart from other elite swimmers in my book.
So you’re telling me there’s a chance
Why would you not want as much content as possible from one of the best programs in the country, especially if they are willing to open doors like many others are not. That’s how sharing knowledge makes everyone better. UVA has earned this spotlight just like any other top tier team in sport. One thing for sure jealously doesn’t make anyone better.
I timed Gretchen’s 100 kick and got 56. I don’t know how Desorbo got 54.
Anyway, can’t wait for Practice and Pancakes with Caeleb Remel and Kathleen Genevieve.
That’s because DeSorbo’s stopwatch starts at -2
You may mean it starts at 2. If it started at -2, everything would be 2 seconds slower🙃
Sorry, couldn’t resist, just being difficult. DeSorbo himself admits his watch is fast (which personally, I am a fan of if it’s consistent, which it is)
Uhhhh no, they meant -2, like they said.
-2 + 56 = 54
2 + 56 = 58
Coleman’s comment was in jest but if you want to nitpick the math, starting at -2 would be starting the watch two seconds before the zero, meaning all times would be two seconds slower whereas starting the watch at the 2 would be two seconds after the zero, making that two seconds faster. 56-(-2)=58; 56-2=54