Brazilian correspondent Caio Leal contributed to this report. Read his Portugese-language swimming site at http://simplesmenteesporte.wordpress.com/
While North American swimming has been fawning over the movements of Vanderkaay, Peirsol, Hutchison, et al, a different storm has been brewing in South America. The thunderclouds have surrounded Brazilian superstar Cesar Cielo, the continent’s best swimmer, and whether or not he would stay home in Brazil to train with the Flamengo Swim Club or return to Auburn, Alabama to train with Brett Hawke, who is the coach that first rose him to international superstardom.
Cielo released the lightning bolt on Friday, with a move that nobody had anticipated: a plan C. Cielo will be starting his own super-elite Brazilian squad made up of many of the country’s best male swimmers. The man who will lead this squad is Alberto Silva, with whom Cielo has been working for several months now. They will begin at Silva’s current home training grounds, the Reebok Academy, but will eventually end up with their own specialized facility. The concept has been compared to the elite team at places like SwimMAC Carolina with David Marsh or Sean Hutchison and Jon Urbancek’s FAST group.
Among the swimmers that have been officially announced as a part of this experimental barnstorming club are: Cielo; Nicholas Santos (50 fly silver medalist at the 2010 Pan Pac Championships); Vinicius Waked (former Arizona State swimmer); Nicolis Oliviera (200m freestyle South American Record Holder); Tales Cerdeira (young rising star breaststroker, former South America 200 breaststroke Record Holder); Andre Schultz (7 time NCAA All-American at Michigan); Leonardo de Deus (200 fly champion at 2010 Rio World Cup stop); and Henrique Rodrigues (5th at 2010 Pan Pac Championships in 200 IM).
Initial indications are that this will be an exclusive club that, for the forseeable future, will be limited to these 8 swimmers. This is a movement spearheaded by Cielo, and will be funded both by private sponsorship as well as the Brazilian Ministry of Sport.
There was much speculation about this decision, especially after recent media comments he made saying that he had been “forcing” his training in Auburn, and that it didn’t feel like home despite over 6 years there. Some have said that the biggest factor in this decision not to come back stateside is that he no longer enjoys the same level of exclusivity with Brett Hawke. During the highs of Cielo’s success, Hawke was still an assistant with the program and could focus more of his efforts on the elite sprint group, including Cielo. Now that Hawke has ascended to lead the entire program, his efforts are more distributed amongst other training groups, as well as increased administrative duties.
This move has several ramifications amongst the world of swimming. First of all, most obviously, it means that Cielo is unlikely to return to Auburn to train for the 2011 World Championships or 2012 Olympics. It also seems that Rodrigues, who has been rumored to be headed to Auburn for over a year now, will be staying in Brazil and training as a professional.
But even more importantly, this indicates an increase in professionalism in swimming in Brazil. Prior to this organization, individual clubs have run their swimmers without any great unity. This club will bring a rise in both the sports profile and synergistically improve all of the swimmers’ training. For the time being, the swimmers will still represent the clubs that they currently are signed with (Cielo Flamengo, Oliveira for Minas TC, Rodrigues for Pinheiros, three of the biggest sporting clubs in the country), but in the future expectations are that they will form and compete under their own team name.
This also sends a ripple throughout Brazilian swimming. Silva had been the head coach at Pinheiros, one of the most recognizable and successful South American clubs, for years. With this move, Arilson Soares Silva will ascend to the powerful throne of that club, with quite a resume as it’s own. He had been the head of the team’s breaststroking group, which includes training Felipe Silva a silver in Rome in the 50 breaststroke and a gold in the same event, short course, in Dubai.
With this new-found cooperation, the Brazilian relays should finally become the world force that they’ve been on a collision course with for years.