If you’ve ever swam corkscrew, you know how nauseating it can be. Even a lap of it can make the most experienced swimmer feel dizzy and lightheaded, but an entire 500 of the stroke sounds almost unbearable.
One brave highschooler decided to attempt a 500 entirely swam with the corkscrew style, and did indeed finish. JP Ungaretti, who attends Oak Park and River Forest High School in Illinois, swam the event in a time of 7:07.02, a time he seemed to be pretty pleased with.
Ungaretti kept his stroke together impressively well in the video, which begs the question of how much he trained for this race. When asked if he was dizzy upon completion of the race, Ungaretti replied, “I feel pretty good actually.”
Ungaretti is a high school swimmer for OPRFHS and has a youtube channel with videos of some of his swim races. On his site, he has videos from both his junior and senior championship meets, as well as a couple videos of him in the gym. According to the videos, his fastest times are a 50.20 in the 100 free and a 22.72 in the 50 free.
This 500 corkscrew is the first time that the race has ever been completed at the East Pool of OPRF High School, according to Ungaretti.
JP, as your former coach, I’m not even sure what to say other than congratulations, you’re famous!
I am overjoyed that my race could be featured on SwimSwam. My whole team is ecstatic and my friends have been texting me all day saying “you’re on SwimSwam!” and “you’re famous!” Thanks for all the smiles.
Although this race was just for fun, I think it shows how great this sport is. The comments on this website and on Facebok have left me feeling happy all day. I’m so lucky to be a part of this sport and I can’t wait to swim more corkscrew in the future 🙂
Keep up the awesome work man!
Had a senior in high school go sub 20 min for 1650 corkscrew 1.5 years ago.
Is it even a drill? I thought the whole point of it was goofing around and getting dizzy
We usually do 3 strokes free, 3 strokes back. The transition can help feel the catch. Corkscrew is better however if you do each lap spinning the other direction. I wonder how efficient/fast one could make this stroke.
This is impressive. I used to get really dizzy doing 25’s corkscrew.
This got me thinking. What is the reason kids do this drill? I remember doing it as a kid, but I can’t think of a real reason to do it. Maybe body stability?
I have my masters group do this drill sometimes. For the beginners it helps to emphasize full extension at both front and back ends of the stroke and body position. For the triathletes it helps with body sense and disorientation. For the experienced swimmers, it’s just a goof.
This only reminds me how ridiculous the Lochte Rule is. Even though you spend about 1/2 your time on your back while doing corkscrew, you still wouldn’t be allowed to push off on your back if you chose to do corkscrew at the end of an IM.
He does a double freestyle into the turn at 350 ????
I think Team USA forgot to add a member to the Olympic Team…