World Record Holder, Ruta Meilutyte, posted to her twitter account this morning thanking the Stanford Women’s Swim team for hosting her at their morning workout at the US Olympic Training Center. Meilutyte announced Lithuania as her new permanent training base earlier this year after spending most of her career training at Plymouth Leander in the UK.
Meilutyte posted a photo of the session on her Facebook page, saying “Thanks to these Stanford University power girls for kicking my butt this morning! It was great to join you guys :)”
https://www.facebook.com/RutaMeilutyte/photos/a.306063129477114.69354.303829646367129/1251362991613785/?type=3
Meilutyte is the current 50 and 100 breaststroke world record holder in long course meters with personal bests of 29.48 and 1:04.35 respectively. The Lithuanian Olympian set both marks at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona following a gold medal performance at the 2012 Olympic Games.
Following the 2015 World Championships, Meilutyte broke her elbow and was forced to withdraw from the 2016 Euro Championships. Meilutyte finished 7th in the 100 meter breaststroke at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
Although Ruta Meilutyte is only 20 years old, she is a professional and is not eligible to be an NCAA athlete.
This is why Greg Meehan is a great recruiter! He saw that Stanford’s weakness was in the breastroke, and he went out and recruited a top breastrokee!
Easy there. Ruta is a pro (has been with Arena since 2013) and NCAA eligibility is not in the cards. Just a friendly visit, not a recruit.
Nature can be unforgiving to some female swimmers as they mature. Has Ruta’s body changed for her never to be as fast as before, as it might have happened with Missy?
That would be unfortunate because I love her breaststroke technique.
Missy,s body didn’t change. My speculation is that her 200 backstroke world record messed up her shoulders. 2:04:06 is nuts ( for a woman) and the backstoke stresses the shoulders. A man who goes 1:51 in textile is going to get his shoulders in big trouble.
Males and females are different in the stability and angles of the joints in the shoulders and knees. This is why ACL injuries are common in female soccer players.
Ledecky,s body seems to be changing tho. She seems more rounded and less lean and this may be affecting her stamina. She seemed more tired than usual during the NCAA,s. Maybe she wasn’t rested. I don’t know. But everybody tapers for the NCAA,s.
Swimmers hurting their shoulders has nothing to do with the times they swim. If you have the proper technique, training, rest, streching, recovery ext your body is trained to handle it. its also very unlikely one race will be the reason. swimmers put hundreds if not thousands of miles in the pool. To be in the upper echelon of the swimming world these swimmers work very hard day in and day out. Not saying shoulder injuries don’t occur, They are fairly common, but if the statement made here is true great backstrokers Piersol, Hosszu Lochte, Murphy… would have far shorter careers.
Have her visit IU next. A certain someone could use some competition.
If memory serves, her coach at Plymouth Leander took another job a while back. Could be she realized she needed a training block with a tougher training group than what she could get in Lithuania, and a friend helped set up the Stanford time. For a young person with a certain personality type, it can be a lot of fun to spend a couple months in different places around the world. After WCs, maybe an Australian stage?
I think Michael Andrew should spend a few months at different places in the US…he is in the perfect position to do it, and I’m sure the great US coaches would very welcoming.
He was in South Africa for a bit in the summer wasn’t he?
Oh, I think so! Anywhere where he can get great daily competition.
Other than the minor inconvenience of training usrpt, I would agree. He’d have to find some people willing to train how he wants, which I’m sure there are for a week or so, which is probably all he needs?
It’s a really great question…to just stick with usrpt, or to try and integrate it with some other training methods. He has the luxury of time, and that is wonderful.
It sure seems like they do plenty of fast swimming at Texas, Cal etc…where I’m sure those coaches would let him come train with them for a bit. I think he should have won his last 200IM race, and if he was doing enough underwater work he would have.
Or go swim for Greg Troy for a year…see if that 1:59 (which obviously is awesome) doesn’t become a 1:56 or better. Like I said, he has the time. What harm could do him?
While Coach Troy has had great IMers, including Mark Szaranek, how ’bout the guy @ ASU? Think he knows a thing or thereabouts medley development.
Yes! Just imagine that. MA could break that 200IM WR
😆
BOBO GIGI…do you not think that someday he could break that record? Or was it the idea of MA training under Bowman a little too crazy for you? Or both? Just curious : )
It would be really tough for someone without the aerobic base to go train with either Troy or Bowman unless he was committed to developing it. Bowman had the notorious puke set. 20 X LCM fly on :60 holding :28 or better that he had his flyers and IMers go. That’s his version of USRPT.
How did they photoshop her body under the water thats gotta be tricky to do. Lilly King is somewhere wagging her finger
Tough childhood without mother. Tough immigrant time in Plymouth without language and friends. She needs warm weather and warm human environment. I almost sure she will find all these in Stanford. As for King then she still has a tough target set by Ruta when she was just 16.
So a scholarship & full training at an Independant school in bucolic Devon , England is a tough immigrant life? Heck they even gave her father a job . Coach Rudd took her from 1.14 to 65 secs & Olympic champ .
Furthermore she was not an immigrant .She was an EU citizen who had rights of abode & access to many financial benefits from the state .
Good point. Also, Lithuania is not the poorest country in eastern Europe. Its not Albania or Moldova.
Albania isn’t in Eastern Europe. Nice talking to the person who has such a deep knowledge of how life was in Lithuania ten years ago and how rich Ruta’s father and her brothers were.
Eastern Europe includes the countries of Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Ok.
” There are almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region”. Wikipedia.
We definitely were educated by different History and Geography books.
No point to argue. I take my statement about Albania back, to please you.
But not about Lithuania. I’m almost positive that I’ve been to this country more times than you have.
Lithuanian status was changed this year to norh europe by UN
Lucky you, G.I.N.A You probably don’t know what
a cultural shock is. You probably don’t know how it feels to be a foreigner at everything of your day-to-day life. You don’t know what it is of not being able to understand what people are talking about and to explain yourself. Lucky you.
As to coach Rudd then that is completely different story of what he got and what he actually accomplished with such gem. But this article is about Ruta, not him.
Prickle – it is the wonderful EU where Togetherness & Love rules. Ive seen Junker kiss ppl practically on the lips because the EU is such a joyous communal experience . Look at that nice blue flag with the ring of stars – happy happy happy !
The reason Rute was there was because Britain has always been an emigrant country .Generations of young ppl & families emigrated away & left their parents behind . It is these ppl that East Europeans esp Baltics are looking after .It is cheaper to bring in a Balt to live in care than it is to put the elderly into old age homes .It is better because , believe me , the… Read more »
The last Germans they invited in were Marx & Engels & look what happened there!
If it isn’t a joke then I’m really glad she did it. She actually should’ve moved to California three years ago.
She didnt joined them, its temporary for like a month or less