2017 FINA WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Sunday, July 23rd – Sunday, July 30th
- Budapest, Hungary
- LCM (50m)
- Full Competition Schedule
- Meet Info
- Psych Sheets
- Omega Results
- Pick ’em Contest
- Event-by-Event Previews
There’s no argument that in the sport of swimming, there’s no direct correlation of dominance between short course yards and long course meters. But what connection does exist between the two is subject of constant debate among fans. And while anecdotal evidence is hardly definitive enough to end the debate, today’s 50 free is a resounding vote in favor of the connection between the two courses.
In the history of NCAA swimming, only two men have ever split 17 seconds in a 50 free. It’s a bit of a hallowed barrier, especially as 18-second swims have become common enough to almost feel pedestrian.
Those two men are Vladimir Morozov (2013) and Caeleb Dressel (2017). They’re also the top two qualifiers heading into tomorrow night’s long course 50 meter freestyle final at the World Championships.
Certainly there’s some ‘correlation does not equal causation’ at play here. Morozov and Dressel are both fast. Their performances might show that fast swimmers can be fast in both yards and meters, something no one would argue. But it also suggests that time spent “in the bathtub” isn’t exactly dooming swimmers to careers of no acclaim in the big boy pool.
(Aside: Is it great that somewhere between “the bathtub,” Dean Farris, Joe Schooling’s practice times and the Shields Piano, the SwimSwam comment section is suddenly churning out its own bona fide memes? I’m genuinely asking.)
Looking on a broader scale, 65 total medals have been won thus far by swimmers who competed (or are competing) in the NCAA. That’s a sample too large to ignore. It comprises 41 different swimmers representing 19 different colleges and 4 different nations (at the moment: USA, Canada, Hungary and Brazil).
There’s an argument to be made that short course yards swimming is the perfect training to become great at long course. Yards swimming more than any other course emphasizes turns and underwaters, the vital piece that often seems to separate the good swimmers from the really great ones. Short course swimming also values starts more than long course swimming, something Dressel in particular has become notoriously dominant at.
The NCAA format also forces swimmers to get used to contesting multiple events in a single session, and performing well over multi-day meets in highly-charged atmospheres. Look at Dressel, who typically swims 4 events in a single college dual meet that spans maybe 3 hours. At NCAAs, he swam 14 races over 4 days, comprising just 7 different sessions. He has one of the busiest World Championship lineups of any swimmer, but his schedule is arguably easier in terms of event density: he’ll swim a likely 17 times (assuming he swims only finals of the medley relay and mixed free relay) over 8 days and 16 sessions.
The 50 free is unpredictable, and there’s no guarantee that Dressel and Morozov will both medal. But for now, both are showing that short course dominance does indeed transfer over to the Olympic-sized pool – perhaps more often than we might think.
Distance swimmers get hurt by not having access to long course. Sprinters not so much. But, the missing link is that our swimmers train both, short course during the winter and long course during the spring and summer. During Olympic years they mix in a little more long course or take off the college season to skip the short course.
Swimming training constantly evolves. Back in the early 1980s we realized we were training too many yards and not enough strength/speed training. Even our sprinters back then were forced into long slow training sessions. Bottom line, swimmers need to train in both long course and short course and train differently based on their physical differences. One size doesn’t fit all.
Ian Crocker came from a U.S. state that does NOT have a 50 meter pool. Zero. Always thought that was hindering our Maine swimmers . . . maybe not.
I think I just heard someone say DEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAANNNNMNNN FFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAAAAA@AAARRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Maybe I missed it, but I thought ppl thought Franklin made a mistake going to college because of having to switch from LCM to short course. And I thought the GOAT stamped his authority on only training LCM. So I am confused…because of Dressel we are supposed to change P.O.V.?
Read Bowman’s book. Phelps trained fly almost exclusively short course. In addition to that, he rarely actually performed a 200 fly in practice instead doing primarily short repeats. You simply can’t train fly in 50M pool unless the swimmer doesn’t use his kick (Laslo). I am not sure about Franklin, but it looked like her walls didn’t improve at college and they should have. Probably a lot of other factors including health. Like anything, I think the pool link depends on the swimmer, stroke, and distance. I’ve watch several top 10 college teams practice SC and LC. LC is full of mindless drills, slow swimming, no walls, tired long sets. SC is explosive and more race like.
It wasn’t college that ruined Franklin. She had a year and a half before Rio to train with Todd Schmitz again, so if the problem was college he’d have been able to sort it out by then. I think the fame and pressure that she got just by being Missy Franklin got to her. She’s a people pleaser, likes to rise to people’s expectations, etc., and I think that caused her to put way more pressure on herself than anyone should ever be under.
If Durden can “fix” her career, it won’t be through starts and turns (though that couldn’t hurt), it’ll all be between the ears.
Missy got injured…the pain affected her….it is some as that. She had two surgeries on her shoulders. Simple as that….
Yes! Love the meme’s and jokes! Wonder when folks will maybe start incorporating Sjostrom’s refrigerator comment in lieu of the piano!
Regarding the SCY v LCM debate. I think any US swimmer that didn’t have the opportunity to train LCM when they were younger will say that the lack of LCM training impacts them on the international level. For some they learn and adjust once they get to train LCM. For the reverse, there is no question bathtub training can help the starts and turns. They are more critical SCY than LCM. You will not perform or rank as well SCY without them!
If the Australian sprinters came to train yards with one of the great American college teams for like a year, learning how to swim fast off of walls, utilizing starts and turns, and working on pure speed, then they would learn a thing or two. Chalmers and McEvoy are big fish in an underwhelmingly pathetic pond, and have naturally (McEvoy and Magnussens case) become pampered as far as making every national team and not having to compete at the national level. They just can’t seem to really put up the times when they have to race the rest of the world. Any foreigners who swim in the NCAA prove that it is a tried and true way to excel at… Read more »
Boomer Phelps is gonna jump in from the crowd and upset Dressel from lane 0 in a time of 17.48. You heard it here first.
I thought Schooling’s start was out of this world until I saw Dressel’s