1. “Swimming is so easy.”
No. It’s not. And if you continue to try and prove that ridiculous statement, I will go into full-fledged debate mode.
2. “I love Michael Phelps!”
You do…that one week of the summer olympics when everyone is suddenly a swimming fanatic? No, you don’t love Michael Phelps. You’ll be over it by next week.
3. “What was your time?”
My time is my business. Your time is yours. I don’t care how fast you swim. And you shouldn’t care how fast I swim.
4. “Good job!”
If I’m walking away from the blocks not smiling, don’t say good job. Don’t try to make me feel better, because it’s just a reminder that I sucked.
5. “I’m so nervous for this race.”
I’m trying to get in the zone. I’m trying to focus. Your negativity is not helping. Stop talking to me.
6. “Are you going to the Olympics?
Yes, I understand you don’t encounter swimmers often, but we are not all Michael Phelps.
7. “Are you going to that party Wednesday night!”
No…I am not. I never go to parties on weeknights. I have 5am practice. I am a swimmer. We train before school starts…before the sun comes up.
8. “This next set will be a fly set…”
For 99% of swimmers a butterfly set means one thing…pain.
A lot of the points on this article and in the comments are the reason that swimmers are so insufferable. They LOVE to feel bad for themselves. LOVE to pretend what they are doing so SO much harder than every other sport. Just because you are dedicated to making yourself good at something doesn’t mean that everyone else should give you the time day, you should be self-motivated enough to accept that. And in other sports knowing someone’s time is the equivalent of ranking them by ability, and that happens in every sport at every level from kindergarten to professional, so get over it. Swimming is not an activity it’s a sport, and unfortunately most swimmers do not have any… Read more »
I personally love this, but I do want people to talk to me about races, im always optimistic no matter how suckish I performed. Because if I let a bad race get to me, it just makes me suck at everything else too.
#9: When your surgeon tells you that your swimming career is over. Happened this morning.
sorry to hear that man, i’m down voting it because I don’t like that news.
ouch, sorry dude
Do what we did, we openly invited the basketball team to one practice after districts/regionals/state. We did warm up, and then played water polo. Never heard a bad thing from them again.
WHY do some swimmers act like this is not a competition?!! Yes, people want to know where you placed. Yes, people want to know your times!!! It’s a SPORT, which means people want to know RESULTS. That’s a good thing! And guess what, there is a little app called Meet Mobile where I can go look at that anyway. And there are websites that rank swimmers of each age/distance/stroke that we can even look for YOU to say, “Wow, she’s ranked 128 out of 586 swimmers.” I just don’t know any other sport where some athletes whine about such things.
Absolutely. There are few things that can make me swim faster than someone telling me I was slow, especially if they were less than a second faster than me.
While that may be motivational for you, it isn’t for everyone. Getting beaten would get me downtrodden and unlikely to swim well later on, while being told I did well would motivate me to do even better in the next race.
Wait a minute, you’re saying number 7 is off limits? Why didn’t you tell me that like 30 years ago, when I could have been a contender!
I didn’t hate when people asked my time. kinda liked it.