I’ve skipped a couple of days updates as I finally made it down to London to see some of the games. While I was there I had the pleasure of meeting some of our ex-Olympians among other ex-swimmers and current coaches and support staff. Obviously the disappointing medal tally and lack of great individual performances (one or two aside) were topics of conversation. Friends, too, have asked where it went wrong for Team GB’s swimmers, and what to do about it.
I’m going to try to address these questions, but to do so fully at this stage would have required me to have been with the team in the lead up to, and during, the Olympic games. Failing that, being given the opportunity to do a full review with the team would help. So I’m left with partial evidence from watching the swimming on TV, reading tweets and reports from the Games and, of course my experience as a psychologist and organisational change manager (for I think that, for the team to be pretty consistently, albeit only marginally, below their best there must be a cultural element).
Before I do this, let’s just remind ourselves that Team GB haven’t swum badly this week. They just didn’t set the pool on fire. Unfortunately, to hit or exceed their medal target that’s pretty much what they needed to do, such was the quality of competition. We saw some very brave performances and a great deal of effort. We did show signs of progress, at least if our measure is the number of finalists. For some in the team, making a final was a real achievement and let’s not forget that. But for others it really was about medals, and for some it really was about the colour. The elephant in the room was the pressure of performing at home, which seemed to turn into home disadvantage for Team GB’s swimmers.
Home Disadvantage?
In my daily updates I’d already mentioned that research has shown that home advantage can turn into home disadvantage at crunch moments. Olympic swimming finals are definitely crunch moments. Unlike many sports, there is no room for error. You can’t recover from a bad start or turn at this level. Not if you are in the hunt for medals rather than being ‘nailed on’ for gold. But then wasn’t Michael Phelps nailed on for gold in the 200 fly?
Performing under pressure
There’s no doubt that the intensity of the crown’s support, as it was in London (I couldn’t believe, when I was actually there, the noise for the heats. The finals must have been crazy.) can be a source of support. It doesn’t have to be. It seems to lift some people. Others wilt. Others stand up to it, they cope, but that’s not ideal for optimal performance. I think that most of our swimmers were in the ‘coping’ camp. Michael Jamieson was the obvious exception to that. He looked like he genuinely enjoyed it. I looked on as others (it’s not fair to name names here), that I thought were ‘racers’, showed the pressure.
We’ve got to learn to love performing under pressure
Sport psychology tends to emphasise coping. In swimming I don’t think that’s enough. The water is unforgiving. It’s not our natural environment. A hint of tension is all it takes to take the shine off a performance. To be fair, I think that British Swimming knew that already, which is one of the reasons behind the ‘Duel in the Pool’ meets. It’s no surprise that the Americans excel at the Olympics. The collegiate system is all about racing. It nurtures and rewards racers. These guys love it more than we do.
You can choose to love racing, to love the intensity of competition. It’s not something you can just switch on, but you can literally ‘cultivate’ a performance mindset. I buy fully into the process over outcomes idea. But I think that one of the elements of the process needs to be having an attitude to race hard, to hunt down the places. What’s the difference? I think the difference is between sensing and responding to a personal challenge, and feeling that the place has a higher meaning (success/failure, threat to identify etc). It’s subtle, but it’s there. It’s not about what you’re focused on but what it means.
We did best when expectations were lower
Jamieson, David Carry making the final of a stacked 400m when he’d only qualified for the games at the second attempt. Craig Benson doing a PB in the 100 breast at 18. Examples of swimmers that outperformed expectations. That’s consistent with the aforementioned research, that suggests that they could enjoy home advantage. Expectations bring pressure. Bring in the intensity of the crowd and those nerves are amplified. Of course, we don’t have to take on that pressure, to internalise it. That comes back to the previous point. We need to learn to love it.
We’ve got to swim for ourselves
The home games were a potential trap. Performing for your team-mates, for friends, for family, for the entire nation – is potentially dangerous. Again, it’s a source of pressure. As an elite athlete, all you really need to be able to do is look yourself in the mirror and know that you’ve done the best that you possibly could. You might acknowledge the crowd, the public, your family but what I saw in a number of emotional interviews was a swimmer who felt that they’d let people down. That’s a sign that they’d fallen into the trap of swimming for other people, rather for themselves. That might sound selfish, but I think you have to be a little selfish to be an elite athlete in an individual sport. There’s a time and a place for being a good team mate, but when it comes to competition time you need to focus on yourself.
Keeping consistency
This point might seem paradoxical. I think that Team GB’s swimmers need to treat the London Olympics as if it were just another meet. But it isn’t. That’s the paradox. There will never be another meet like it for British Swimmers. (I don’t think that means we sweep it under the carpet, because all it has done is magnify potential issues that we may have). But if you can’t really predict the atmosphere, and certainly can’t recreate it in practice, what do you do? If you take it off the table, make it a less important factor then perhaps (unless you learn to love it) that’s maybe the best that you can do.
Lessons from other sports
Why have swimming not performed like the cyclists, the rowers, or even (after our first night of finals on the track) our track & field athletes (as a sport, one of our perennial underachievers, it might be argued).
Setting the tone – Psychological Momentum
First, looking at last night’s Athletics, I’m not sure that we can learn all that much as a sport. Jessica Ennis put in a great personal performance under pressure, to bring home the gold. I think that Greg Rutherford benefitted from being in between Ennis and Mo Farah, slipping in ‘under the radar’ as it were. (Not that it takes anything from his achievement). Had Ennis not won, I think that Mo Farah would have been under more pressure (though hopefully would still have delivered). 
Similarly, if Hannah Miley had won a medal it might have set the tone for the swimmers and taken some pressure off. Likewise, if Mark Cavendish had won Team GB’s first gold medal on day one, Hanny Miley might have performed differently. Ifs and buts. None of this speculation changes the reality, but psychological momentum is a genuine phenomenon. Remember, it took a few days for us to get our fist gold medal and only a few days ago, the Sun newspaper ran the headline, “Wanted Gold Medal… please can we have just one gold. Any sport. We’re not bothered.”
The Cycling Machine
Cycling is the role model for all of our sports. Of that there is no doubt. I agree with Becky Adlington that some of our more successful sports are also more shallow sports in terms of competition, but whether that is true or not (maybe we all just think our own sport is special) Cycling have set out to, and succeeded in, creating the ultimate performance organisation. The strategy, planning, and attention to detail helps to create a collective belief that seems to transcend the individual riders. New athletes come into the team (OK, so not many have left and that will be interesting) and appear to fit in seamlessly. That’s a performance culture. The confidence that brings creates a level of protection from the expectations and pressure that mean that the athletes can genuinely enjoy the experience. Which, of course, going back to the start of this (now lengthly – sorry) post creates a virtuous cycle.
Rowing – Only Gold is Good Enough
I know that this isn’t true of all boats in the squad, but I like the honesty of the crews that didn’t get what they expected and were unafraid to express their disappointment. The message is that “we’re here to deliver”. This is about personal responsibility. A few people have said to me that they wanted to see more disappointment from our swimmers; that there was a sense that they were happy with their lot. I don’t think that’s true. I think (I don’t know for sure) that there was quite a bit of sticking to the script in post race interviews. I can understand why that might be the case – trying, perhaps, to keep an upbeat mood in the team. But who’s script was it? I think that later in the week there was more honesty, but who says that if someone says “I’m not happy with that, it wasn’t good enough” that it would ‘infect’ the team?
One thing that’s certainly true about rowing is that in most events the responsibility is shared. That does make it easier. In swimming (just as in athletics, it has to be said) it is down to you. But sometimes it is easier to work as a team than as an individual.
An intense learning experience?
So there are my ramblings. I’m not close enough to the team to really know what happened this week. I have to mix speculation with the limited evidence that I have and my professional experience. I wonder what will happen following these Olympics for British Swimming. There may be a reduction in funding. That might not be a terrible thing. That might focus us more on creating the culture and ethos than on the technical support. It might mean that there is real change. We’ll see. The London 2012 Olympic experience will never be repeated for our swimmers. In that sense it might be treated as anomaly. I hope that it’s treated as a unique experience to learn something about our national swimming programme, with the harsh spotlight of the home games highlighting thing that we might not have otherwise learned.
First and foremost the gb swimmers did not fail in London a classic misunderstanding from people who don’t know swimming. Lets actually look at the stats. We had 23 finalists 3rd behind aus and the usa, 2 more than 4 years ago. We had the same number of medals than in Bejing alas of different colours. Anyone who knows swimming did not expect Adlington the retain the 400. The big dissappointment was the lack of personal best times of which there are two main issues.
Firstly our qualification system was a farce, two trials, the first was far too early in the year. We should have had one trials at the last minute like the yanks do. You cannot expect elite swimmers to come down 3 times in 6 months and swim well at the olympics. Secondly Titley and co clearly got the taper wrong. Mileys 4.31 from early season should have medalled and tancocks 52 from 2010 should have medalled but realistically they were only ‘maybe’s’ that didn’t produce. Bill Sweetenham bought an attitude where ‘just turning up’ wasn’t good enough and possibly there has been some resting on our laurels. I agree it was very frustrating to hear so few swimmers taking responsibility for their swims. Alot of that is to do with the heavy media training they recieve, they give the same mundane responses every time.
The big ‘however’ here is that it is completely unfair to compare swimming to sports like rowing and cycling. It takes years and thousands of kilometres to produce a top swimmer. Heather Glover (olympic rower) has only been in her sport for 4 years but in a activity involving so little technical skills they can be taught very easily to someone who has alot of athletism and a great physique. You would never take an 18year old non-swimmer and 4 years later have an average club swimmer let alone Olympic medallist. As Becky Adlington says, “swimming is the hardest sport to medal in”. The other big reason that we have such success in these sports is their huge cost. The pool of competition in rowing and cycling are tiny, anyone can put a swimming costume on and jump in a pool. Because of the historical influence of rowing inparitcular in our sporting culture they recieve dissproportionate amounts of funding. If we want top swimmers we have got to be prepared to pay for it. We need our top swimmers to race the best americans regularly so they are used to hard racing which means funding them abroad. We need more 50m pools not simply replacing the run-down ones such as crystal palace and coventry. There also needs to be a far better country wide coaching forum so that information from the elite end has a far better trickle down effect so that we are not constantly 10 years behind other nations in the way we prepare our athletes.
Thanks for the thoughtful response Matt.
I think your comments are fair. I hope that I didn’t appear to say that we did particularly badly. We just didn’t step up and produce our best at the big meet.
Maybe it is down to the taper. I’m not so sure. It might be – for every comment I make I have to accept that I don’t know exactly what went on in the Team GB camp. They say that when you only have a hammer everything you see is a nail, but I do think that the issues this week were more psychological.
Swimming in Great Britain has come an awful long way since I was a youth. With the exception of a few pockets, those really do feel like the dark ages when I see how professional our swimmers and coaches now are, and the performance system is around the athletes. So we shouldn’t be too harsh, but try to find the answers to the question of how we step up again, having done so once and found that wasn’t quite enough.
Although like everyone else I am disappointed that our swimmers did not perform to their potential I am not convinced that they could not handle the pressure of the large home crowd. Very many of our swimmers swam slower than trials and to me this seems to be too large a number when it comes to just loosing their bottle. It also seems to say that in sports like Athletics and Cycling these people can handle the pressure whist very few swimmers can. It may be that this will be proved to be the case but some of the swimmers that under performed like Liam Tanncock and Fran Halsall are very mentally tough and to me it seems unlikely that they would not use the crowd to push them to personal bests.
I think we have to look what happened from the trials to the finals and examine all the possibilities with an open mind, No doubt the mind set will be part of it but there seems to be too many going slower than trials to make this the only factor, if even the major factor
You may be right, John. You have to look at the individual, really. Clearly I look at it from a psychological angle. I thought Tancock swam well, really. He was up for it, had a go, just didn’t quite get the place to go with the effort. Halsall didn’t quite seem herself – I hear of shoulder problems – but I don’t know exactly what’s what. Everyone will have their own story to tell – what the review will need to do is look for common themes, and deal with those.
However, my challenge would be, that your response implies that physical preparation – taper etc – took a blanket approach? Surely the swimmers and their own coaches know what works for them physically, and surely they would have been able to execute their individual plans in the run up to the games? If not, that would surely have been a big mistake?
I am not sure what common training they went through but I know that they went to camp in Edinburgh. It wouldn’t be the first time that a team has been over trained at a camp just before a major competition. I am not saying it was all physical but I not sure it was all psychological either when 80% could not reproduce the times at trials. I also think that some of the comments of “home disadvantage” and saying that it could not be prepared for sort of puts the blame on weak minded swimmers rather the coaches and directors stepping up and saying we got it wrong and taking a hard look at the preparation to see why. It may be that many were overawed by the occasion but I do not accept that this is not the joint responsibility of the coaches and swimmers to prepare for this. If other sports can get it right why not swimming?
If it was mental, it certainly doesn’t suggest weak-minded swimmers and coaches that don’t have anything to blame. Coaches and other performance staff, including the PD, create a ‘climate’ that has an influence on the state of the swimmers. I’ve been told about (but not witnessed) coaches that are obviously more anxious than their swimmers (not at these games), and this can’t help. Individual responses don’t happen in a vacuum. I certainly can’t say for sure what happened, as a team. Would I say that it was all mental, and nothing physical? Absolutely not. Just as I wouldn’t suggest that it was all physical and nothing mental..
I also didn’t mean that swimmers couldn’t be prepared for the atmosphere they experienced in London, but I don’t think anyone really knew that it would be quite as crazy as it was, and that would be hard to recreate.
The other sports – those that really did deliver – have created exactly the culture of performance that gives the athletes a shared sense of confidence that in many ways immunises the athletes from the pressure. What’s also interesting, however, is that although we did really well overall, there are plenty of athletes, in a number of sports, that didn’t do as well as they hoped to. Even with 29 gold medals, it didn’t all come off for Team GB.
I wasn’t going to respond here, but I feel that rowing is subject to a large number of misconceptions here
Interesting point re trials system
The rowing system has 3 early long distance trials (changing to 2 from this season) then an invitational final trial over 2km (the international distance) in SMALL boats (singles or pairs) in april to allow crew selections, although there may be some tweaking later on (this year especially, and these seemed to be the crews that didn’t perform as well).
The US selects far later, with a final trial and there are arguments that this means two peaks rather closer together and thus impacts on ability to perform at their best on race day.
Finally, ‘so little technical skills’ is just complete RUBBISH. Helen Glover’s story is exceptional, most rowers in the GB squad have been in the sport since their early teens and it is not easy to perfect that motion and blend with another rower (or another 7) so you all move together in an efficient way. It could well be argued that our two biggest boat- the eights- did not achieve it this cycle. If you think it is easy, please go along to your local club and ask to go straight into a racing single (8m long and 30cm wide at most). And it does also take thousands and thousands of kilometres to produce a rower. 2x18km per day most days plus strength and conditioning. Probably 340 days a year. Even I as an amateur at club level will probably cover 60+km a week on the hardest weeks, many of them outside in all weathers.
Finally- hardest sport to medal in. More events, multiple entrants in each event per NOC, multiple events per athlete. How many swimmers had to be physically lifted out of the pool as they could hardly walk after racing to win a medal? Look at Mahe Drysdale, Mark Hunter and Alan Campbell.
Excellent article Rob. Thoroughly agree with each and every point. Additionally, it as to be argued that it should be in the makeup of a top class athlete to be ready for such tests. And that’s where a talent ID scheme should be re-evaluated and introduced to highlight top quality swimmers at an early age and lay those foundations early.
It’s an interesting comment about talent ID. I’m not that close to the system in the UK, but I do know that there isn’t a single joined up approach (because I applied for a job to try and manage the creation of one). I think it’s still based more on performance than potential, though. I’d also love to see us pushing more of our ‘Sporting Giants’ towards swimming because we’re just not physically up there in the men’s swimming. The prevailing culture in the sport seems to be that you have to start really young and get into full training really young. I see it with my own daughter that the window of opportunity is already starting to close at 9 to get into squads.
I have been impressed with the UK’s efforts over the last decade or so to build an ID structure and development program that is designed to maximize available talent. I have lived in the US for many years and coached in a large university setting. It has been interesting to watch the US fail to capitalize and develop talent with the same granularity as, say, in the UK. Some sports have seen their absolute dominance drop on the world stage. Less so perhaps with swimming, which is the subject of this discussion.
In reading the comments, my observation is that the allocation of funding to build a sound talent development pyramid has taken place in the UK. The base of the pyramid has produced many more swimmers who are knocking on the door of medal contention, and obviously a smaller number of swimmers who do indeed garner the hardware.
I will arbitrarily say that the funding has built 90% of an effective system. Unfortunately, I agree with several contributors that to “seal the deal” on the world stage requires periodic exposure to racing, not just elite swimming preparation. The US may waste talent, relatively to smaller countries, but top performers “race” under high pressure on a regular basis with and without optimal periodization from a physical and psychological perspective. They learn to adapt and perform in the last 10% of the performance pyramid. Do UK athletes do the same, yes, bur the probability is that they are do so less frequently and less intensely in that 10% band of human performance.
The fix? In my day job as a manager I would have been fired many times for not asking for enough money to get the job done. For the UK to spend limited resources to move the median performer to the level of knocking on the door of medal contention is noble. To not secure funding to finish the job with an increase in “racing” performance opportunities for elite talent is a mismanagement of funds. It seems that the solution is understood by the comments above. If funding pool is static, reallocate the money, to achieve the stated goals and mission. Yes it is hard, and some segment of the pyramid will suffer, but it is a fundamental aspect of management.
Thank you for taking the time to comment, really interesting perspective.
So you think that more exposure to real racing (like the dual meets) is part of the solution? I guess when you do that you can’t always be 100% prepared, too. So you get used to doing the job, as it were, in less than optimal conditions as well as optimal..
Hi Robbie
Good article and some interesting points and comments made. Would love to discuss in more detail with you but difficult and quite time consuming for me to go into a lot of depth here. Might have to discuss with you on FB or something?
Ian
Thanks Ian. Always happy to talk swimmming and psychology! Can do a video chat through facebook/skype. I’m also in London from Weds night to MOnday if you are still around.
Wow! This article gives an insight as to why swimming under performed. Really Miley may have won if Mark Cavemdish had taken the pressure off?! Cycling does not have the depth? Rowing is a team sport? Athletics wad essentially lucky?
Excuse after excuse after excuse. A total lack of responsibility from swimmers & the sport. The only athlete who took responsibility for their performance was KAP.
And the excuse of only ‘copimg’ with pressure… if that is true British Swimming have shown a total lack of preparation for the athletes, last time I checked it was a home games for every GB athlete. Ennis was perhaps under more pressure than ANY GB athlete yet she delivered.
Swimming needs to front up to the fact it failed as a sport, despite some great individual swims. Stop looking for excuses. Stop believing what is said here & was said by Adlington twice that ‘swimming is harder than other sports’. It isn’t, GB just isn’t doing things right like cycling & rowing inpaticular
PJS, thanks for the comment.
Bear in mind that I don’t represent the sport, and don’t work for British Swimming.
I offer an analysis, with a fair degree of ‘educated’ speculation, of how swimming might have had different results. If you don’t believe in psychological momentum, that’s fine, but there is plenty of evidence for it as a construct. I’ve offered up a series of “what ifs” that might have helped create a different climate for the British team, that’s all. The results may or may not have been different. Know knows? Do I believe that if Miley had delivered, that others might have swum better too? Yes. Quite possibly, because each “bad” (not the right word, really) can create doubt in the minds of other team members, and this is something that can grow. Do I believe that Miley felt pressure to deliver Team GB’s first medal? Yes. Do I believe that it impacted her performance? Yes, possibly. So, if Cavendish had won the road race (not making it him responsible for swimming), it is logical to believe that Miley may have swum faster (she certainly wouldn’t have beaten Yi Shiwen under any conditions, unfortunately)? Yes. These are all my own beliefs, and although they are speculative each has a psychological rationale.
I don’t disagree about Ennis and other athletes. I’m not commenting on how the British swimmers prepared, because I wasn’t with them, but for some reason they didn’t quite perform as they can. The margins were tiny in many cases, but that’s all it takes. As you known, as a rower, the water is unforgiving of the smallest amount of tension, any deterioration of technique.
I really hope that swimming does ‘front up’. Individually, the swimmers that continue will. My point about other sports was, fundamentally, that we could learn from them. It remains to be seen what British Swimming will learn, as an organisation, from London. We’ll never experience a swim meet with an atmosphere like that for our own swimmers, I expect, but I hope that doesn’t mean that it is treated as an anomaly; rather it shone the light on the sport and perhaps a few weaknesses were revealed. However, it will take the right questions of the right people to really find out.
As for Adlington, my view is that her comments were clearly born out of frutration and are a sign that she struggled with the expectations, which is a shame. Any comparison with other sports at that moment were unnecessary and appear petty. If anyone is interested enough to look at the issue of depth with a rigourous statistical analysis, perhaps they can let us know whether there is any truth in them.
Cheers,
Rob
While I understand that Swimming is an extremely technical sport and I don’t think that for a second that someone would be able to go from a non-swimmer to an Olympic athlete in four years, the first comment tries to compare Rowing Gold Medallist Helen Glover (he actually combined Heather Stanning in with her) with a novice Swimmer. Helen was, from details feely available, quite an athlete prior to taking up rowing, and in sports that used the same motor skills and abilities that rowing requires.
Rowing is almost exclusively a sporting activity, whereas Swimming is not. It would not be right to say “look at Helen, she got from no-where to Rowing Gold in four years, therefore its easier” and use a comparison with swimming and say a non-swimmer getting Gold in four years.
A great deal of people learn to Swim as a part of life, so the comparison would be closer to take a person that could swim, had all of the athletic attributes of someone selected as part of an elite programme (which is what the sporting giants programme aimed at for a number of sports) and then perfecting their swimming.
Has anyone tried this in Swimming UK?
Inceidentally, it’s slightly disappointing that swimming isn’t/wasn’t part of the sporting giants programme, because in the men’s events at least most of the medallists are huge and our swimmers just haven’t got the power (IMO). Whether that’s down to UK Sport or the attitude of the sport (“if you’re not already a swimmer..”) I don’t know.
This article is great for several reasons. First it’s right to start a debate – that’s one way to create change.
Second I am a rower and rowing blogger. You are wrong about the technicality of our sport. It’s the equal of swimming. Helen Glover’s rise in four years is beyond exceptional. Normally it takes 8 years to create what the casual observer would think was an “overnight success”. She is talented and had some awesome coaching.
Third. I am guessing Swimming didn’t take up Clive Woodward’s offer to assist any sport to improve when he joined the BOA. But maybe taking an outsider in to “re-boot” the system is what is needed.
At least you now have 20 Olympic swimming pools. Before this bid Chris Bailliew (ex Olympic Rower and former Chairman of British Swimming) told me that the country had one, Crystal Palace. Better facilities are a good start for rebuilding a sport. Funding and coaching are also needed.
Lastly would you let me reproduce this article on our blog?
Yes, no problem. As long as it’s used in the spirit of the original post, which is to look at how swimming could improve rather than to ‘have a go’ at other sports (as some responses on twitter seem to suggest), which was never intended!
Matt:
From your post:
QUOTE “The big ‘however’ here is that it is completely unfair to compare swimming to sports like rowing and cycling. It takes years and thousands of kilometres to produce a top swimmer. Heather Glover (olympic rower) has only been in her sport for 4 years but in a activity involving so little technical skills they can be taught very easily to someone who has alot of athletism and a great physique. You would never take an 18year old non-swimmer and 4 years later have an average club swimmer let alone Olympic medallist” END QUOTE
You have shown a total disregard for rowing and cycling here. Glover is unusual and was supported by top coaches from day 1 with much support etc. Her story novice to Olympian (yet alone Champion) is unusual in our sport. I’d point out that two 15 year school kids won gold in swimming, years of training… really much mreo than 4-5 years of porper training? If the answer is yes at 15 they have done more than 4-5 years proper training then I’d suggest that is not wise for an athelte of 10-12 in any sport. I don’t think you’ll ever see a 15 year old in an Olympic rowing or cycling or atheltic team. Sports have some odd differences. You clearly have no knowledge of rowing, I’d be happy to put you in a boat and you can perhaps see the technical skill required for yourself!? As Kath Grainger (who by the way took 20 years from novice to Olympic Gold in rowing), said ALL sports are hard.
As for cycling, did you see the interview with Performance Director Dave Brailsford? They look at everything, even teaching athletes how to wash their hands! Cycling probably cover more bases than most other sports combined, they take RESPONSIBILITY for THEIR performance. I can’t imagine ANY sport looks at each thing is as much detail as British Cycling.
Adlingtons comments the first time were perhaps born of frustration but the second time she said it was in a measured setting and, it seemed, born of a beleif her sport IS harder. This is also backed up when people like Sharon Davis says re Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour “Its not as hard as say Rebecca Adlington winnign double gold in Beijing in a truely global sport” REALLY…?!!
Swimming does have one advantage over ALL other sports, it is the ONLY sport in the National Curriculum. This does at least mean EVERY school kid in the UK is exposed to the sport. The base of British Swimming’s (BS) pyramid is HUGE! Clearly there is a beleif, which seems to be wide spread in swimming is that swimming is harder. The sooner the swim fraternity can accept that THEY need to look at what THEY are doing to get the success in the pool that you, I, and all Team GB supporters would love to see, the better.
Swimming cannot continue to make excuses. It NEEDS to front up. Funding will no doubt be at risk for swimming in the coming 4 years, I for one hope that British Swimming coem up with a good forward plan up to and beyond Rio and off the back of that UK Sport and the decision makers give the sport the chance to get it right. There are so many medal chances in the pool, GB should be making the most of that.
I really hope that in 4 years time The GB Swim Team can take some of the numerous medal chances there are in the pool. WIth honesty in the sport from the coaches down to the athletes they will.
The only sport in the national curriculum, yet so many children leave school unable to swim!
Fair point, but that is perhaps indicative of coaching standards which has to be a responsibility of the NGB. Something to addres and should be a key part of British Swimmings Whole Sport Plan.
Incidentally not trying to compare sports, the swimming fraternity did that. I am keen that swimming looks at itself, takes responsibility & in 4 years delivers even more. 34 events in swimming gives lots of opportunities to medal for Team GB.
We’ve just had a good European Juniors. We have a good women’s team – hope that they can just step up that tiny bit for Rio, and add a world class breastroker (or anything close to it). To be fair, though, our best 100 breastroker this year is only 16 so has time. Our men have a long way to go. In addition to understanding why we didn’t perform as we can in London we need to work harder to identify male talent, and to understand why we are not producing sprint freestylers in particular.
Great interview on Radio 5 with swimming PD. seems the honest conversations have started. He made no excuses & is asking athletes to complete anon feedback.
Robbie
I watched the Olympics in awe from my holiday villa in Spain and I was astonished at the real feeling of patriotism, togetherness, competitive buzz…..call it what you will, but I was ready to pull the trunks on again and I was ready to take on all comers (particularly after a bottle of Rioja!)
We can completely discount the fact that the environment was not conducive to PB’s. The pool was proved to be “quick” so we can also discount that as a reason for poor performance.
The issue for me is that an entire team failed to function effectively. It didn’t make the start it needed and the performances which followed simply slotted into the mindset that “something” in the preparation wasn’t right, or the weight of expectation was overpowering. I just don’t buy that theory and nor do I believe that the preparation in general wasn’t right because anyone who has swam at a reasonable level will know what they need to do to swim at their best.
Of course we don’t always swim at our best, and nor did Team GB (with the obvious exception) so how do you “guarantee” that you’re ready for your particular event on a particular day?
The answer for me lies in turning this “once in a lifetime” moment into “another day at the office”
Your “another day at the office” performance needs to be the one which makes the final, and makes the sharp end of that final, it’s the last bit of magic which get’s the gold medal and that may well simply be down to being THE most talented swimmer ever to grace a pool, luck, great start/turn/finish, preparation, whatever that additional ingredient which can’t be coached,bought, trained or prepared for is!. Let’s face it, we can’t win them all, but it would be nice to win some!
The point someone made earlier about the American system and “dual” meets would go a long way to producing a more regular high level of performance but this has to be at the highest level so perhaps the way forward is to invite the Americans/Australians to compete in head to head competitions on a far more regular basis.
If you swim against someone enough times, at some point, I think the person who always comes second will realise what’s going wrong, what needs done to improve, what needs done to compete, and I believe the competition will become closer over time, and who knows…….the guy that comes second might just sneak one!!
Cheers Mike, nice comment. Makes a lot of sense.