Underwater Video & Analysis of Olympic Champion Cam McEvoy’s 50 FR from Australian Trials

During the day 7 finals session of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Australian Cam McEvoy made history, winning Australia’s first gold medal in the men’s 50 freestyle. McEvoy won the race in 21.25, which was a bit off his Australian Record of 21.06, however, it got the job done. McEvoy has been on a journey of revolutionizing pure sprint training for the past few years, so let’s take a look at how his racing looks. While we don’t have an underwater video of McEvoy from the Olympic final a few days ago, we do have this video of him from the Australian Trials back in June, where he won in a time of 21.35, very similar to his winning time in Paris.

Let’s talk about what we’re seeing in this video. Let’s start with the dive. He hits the water, and very quickly begins hard, fast underwater dolphin kicks. As is pretty typical in a 50, McEvoy did 5 underwater dolphin kicks, which is similar to the swimmers on either side of him. While huge underwaters can be very helpful in most races, in a 50 free, where you’re swimming 100% as fast as you possibly can, most swimmers will be better off doing a lower number of underwater kicks and getting up swimming sooner.

Following the 5 underwater kicks, McEvoy’s transition to his breakout was as smooth as you could hope for. There was no time between when he broke his streamline and started his first pull, and he did so right as his body was breaking the surface.

From there, McEvoy hits his top tempo right from the very start. He didn’t take any stroke cycles to build it up. It’s what you would expect from an Olympic champion, but worth noting nonetheless.

You’ll also notice how flat his hips stay during this race. This is, of course, not the best angle to look at rotation, but even so, you can tell there is little to no rotation in his hips on this race. Another technical thing that is very apparent is how still he’s holding his head throughout the race. His whole head moves slightly side-to-side with each stroke due to his torso moving slightly side-to-side as he does his stroke cycles (which is completely normal), however, you can see the angle at which he holds his head doesn’t move at all. His eyes stay in exactly the same place.

Outside of that, we can note the straight path McEvoy’s hands follow through their pulls, as it relates to his body line. Both hands enter straight out in front of McEvoy’s body, in line with his should. If you slow the video down, you’ll see that his hands then stay right on the edge of his body line through the entire pull.

Fellow swim nerds: Let us know if you see anything else McEvoy is doing in this video in the comments.

This race was huge for McEvoy, completing his career resurgence that started following Tokyo. McEvoy, who, mid you, was always one of the elite swimmers in the world, hadn’t won a World Championships or Olympic gold in any race through 2022. He then, as is well documented, revamped his training methods, slashing his volume of swimming in the pool and putting a major focus on dryland. McEvoy’s goal was to prioritize speed and power, pointing out that the need for endurance, and therefore huge amounts of volume in the pool, is much lower for a race that only lasts 21 seconds.

His creativity has paid off. Since beginning his new training, McEvoy broke the Oceanic Record in the 50 free with his 21.06, won the World Championships last summer in Fukuoka, and, most recently, earned Australia’s first Olympic title in the 50 free.