Within the next two weeks, Team USA will fly over seas to prepare for the 2013 World Championships. The camps give the swimmers an opportunity to properly adjust to the time change and build team chemistry. The coaching staffs and the national team director, Frank Busch, will use the time spent at the camps to select relay teams by evalauting the athletes’ best times, past relay performances, past reaction times, relay experience, consistency of performances, fatigue, health, fitness levels, training preparation, participation during the camp, attitude, team chemistry, and the number of swims each athlete will have during the meet.
The Open Water World Championship Team leaves on Wednesday, July 10th. The team takes a plane to Mataro, Spain for the first part of the training camp. They stay in Mataro until Wednesday, the 17th of July. Their next stop is Barcelona, where they continue the training camp through Thursday the 19th. Open water competition begins on Saturday, July 20th and ends on Saturday, July 27th.
The rest of the World Championship swim team leaves for Washington D.C. on Tuesday, July 16th. The team meets in D.C. and then takes a plane to Bilbao, Spain and stays there until Wednesday, July 24th. On the 24th, they travel to Barcelona and continue the camp through the 27th. The competition in the pool begins on Sunday, July 28th, and ends on Sunday, August 4th.
I am grateful for this article as I was ready to ask if anyone at SwimSwam knew what the training camps schedule looked like. Thanks for the update!