The biggest story of an otherwise toned down World Championship Trials meet is obvious. There is a generation of teenage stars, particularly male, in American swimming right now of the likes we have never seen before. With the retirement of Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte stands alone as the last prominent member of the previous best generation in American swimming. While there are some good to great American swimmers right now in their 20s, they don’t match up with the star power that Phelps, Peirsol, Hansen and Crocker et al brought with them at the turn of the century. No, that will fall to this next group. Which of course, begs the question: why? Why all of a sudden are there so many future potential stars in the age group ranks?
One reason I haven’t heard discussed is the impact that the great demographic change in the American national team we’ve seen over the last four olympic cycles. As the ages of swimmers at the top has pushed up and up, the club level has become more and more of a developmental rung in the ladder. This was very disruptive, particularly for coaches who had spent their careers trying to work to the top of the ladder and build their clubs, only to find that college swimming and ultimately post-graduate centers were becoming the new top of the ladder. Clubs also had to adjust their development systems for swimmers that had longer careers. No longer was it was important for a swimmer to max out their potential for an Olympic spot in their teenage years.
This has led to a dramatic increase in swimmers progressing well from age group to age group. The prevailing wisdom used to being a top age group swimmer actually meant you were going to crash and burn later on. That is no longer true. Jack Conger and Ryan Murphy are good examples of this. So is Justin Lynch, who just yesterday took down a Phelps NAG record, two years after putting up a 54 second 100 butterfly at age 14. Missy Franklin is a great example of an age group phenom who went all the way to becoming the best swimmer in the world and continues apace.
One critical factor that pushes these results along is the now very easy ability for swimmers and coaches to compare their results nationally. No one gets to live in a bubble, dominating local age group competition. Everyone knows where the bar is being set and works to reset it. Perhaps no coach has embodied all of this more than Sergio Lopez, who had single-handedly completely rebooted what it means to be a “Club Coach” in America.
Sergio’s teams have performed so well over the last few years that it’s probably time we all consign ourselves to the fact that we shouldn’t even say “maybe” before we say “the best swimming coach in America”. One of the biggest common mistakes people make in evaluating coaches is to only look at their best result and judge them on that. This ignores that there is a lot of volatility and chance involved in one top swimmer. It is far more important to keep digging to see what’s beneath. Sergio Lopez (and the coaches around him at Bolles) are having great results with a lot of swimmers. That’s what truly matters.
It’s comforting to know that so much is changing for the better at the club level. The spectre of centralized post-graduate centers has done much to help that over the last year. With college swimming in as precarious a position as it has ever been, I have a feeling that swimming will need the clubs more than ever in the future.
im going to be moving to southern california los angeles. Does anybody know of any great age group swim teams out there.
I remember as a nerdy kid, I poured through xerox’ed meet programs to see what the meet records were, what times the older kids were swimming, etc. There were a few standout times by local studs that probably skewed my ideas of what was possible in each event.
It might or might not have made a difference… but mentally I would have approached the sport differently. There is a difference between “wow, I just blew away these kids, and put my name in the meet record book!” and “wow, I just posted the 15th best time in the nation… I wonder what I have to do to beat those other 14 kids?”
I think it may be more appropriate to call Sergio Lopez a high school coach than a club coach. Yes, he does both, but all his swimmers (I’m aware of) are high school boys accepted into an elite squad – not 10 year olds picking up the sport.
Perhaps this is due to the increased number of swimmers across the US, thus increasing the pool (pun intended) of talent from which to draw. In SoCal swimming, we have gone from just one June Age Group Champ meet, to now 3, and all have the same numbers that only one drew a few years ago. The Phelps/Olympics phenomenon has done it’s job to raise the number of age group swimmers across America and no doubt the world.
I think a lot has to do with the formations of “super teams”. You can’t underestimate the advantage of training with a team full of swimmers either on par or faster than you.
Justin Wright of Fresno is one of those rare exceptions. I am from that region in CA; grew up swimming on another local area team. He is a rare breed coming out of an area that is not a “hotbed” for swimming in CA. Compare results of the local area high school championships to Southern or Northern CA – most of the winners in central CA wouldn’t even final in the SoCal area.
I actually think the super teams hurt. The biggest teams (1000+) are actually pretty inefficient at developing swimmers.
So you are saying clubs like NCAP and SwimMAC are inefficient at developing swimmers?
I would argue that this has much to do with Michael Phelps’ success, both for boys and girls. The age groupers that are now making a name for themselves all began when Michael Phelps started making a name for himself. We are 9 years from Phelps coming on the scene during the 2004 Olympics. All the press and excitement surrounding this young swimmer only built over the years and the constant media discussions about whether he would break Mark Spitz’s gold medal counts. His advertizing deals that kept him in print and on TV kept the sport of swimming in the public eye and not just in Olympic years.
There were plenty of great swimmers that were getting the press… Read more »
Yep, I think you are getting a little carried away with the Sergio comment. A very good coach with a great group of guys right now. But where are all the age group girls? Haven’t had but one or two in a long time competing on the highest stage. There are a lot of great coaches across the country right now. No disrespect but Turcotte at Dynamo, Marsh at SwimMAC, Reese at Clearwater, Steve Brown at Sarasota YMCA and Nations Capital to name a few are getting it done at all levels, age group to senior, and both genders.
Umm…have you been watching Missy Franklin? She is so far beyond any boy her age it’s not even worth comparison. These NAG boys are good; but they couldn’t even make the A final much less win multiple events at a National Championship. She is only 17 now…
The reason: accessible information. Age group coaches have access to more info about training, times, technique, etc. Younger swimmers are way ahead of the game from the previous generation in terms of knowing times of their competitors, researching training methods & supplements, etc.
Yes. This is the only reason. Accessibility of information has not existed before the past 2 years, so the whole swimming community would like to thank you deeply for the newfound American age group talent