My first encounter with Ian was when I first moved to Austin a few months ago; he was actually my coach. I was swimming with the Rollingwood masters team, and Ian is one of many who run the workouts for that group. Ian gave me advice my first day in the water (advice which I have actually grown quite a bit from) and did so in a gentle and encouraging manner. I’ve been excited to have any sort of interaction with him I can ever since.
It was great getting to spend some time getting to know his background outside of the pool. I, like many others, was very familiar with his swimming history, but not much else. I had heard he was a music fan, but didn’t realize that meant he also played music himself. As a fan of music myself, it’s always fun to hear others’ experiences seeing shows or discovering artists, and Ian was no exception.
Ian has transformed his swimming experiences into a career, using his prowess in and out of the pool to host clinics, online mentor, teach lessons, and coach club and masters. It’s heartwarming to hear Ian talk about the importance of the relationships he has formed through coaching club. It’s something he didn’t really see himself doing, but now something that he truly enjoys and hopes to do more of going forward.
Brilliant. I could have listened for another ten, interesting man.
I’m digging the ‘stache Coleman!
Should ask his why he quit swimming the 200 free.
might have had something to do with the way swimming evolved? He had a lot of speed and probably got out the first 100 and tried to hang but that became a less viable strategy over time. Or maybe he just didn’t want to swim it anymore and focus on the 100 fly and free instead, would definitely be interesting to hear a response to that question
I mean, I guess it looks like a lot of swimmers are actually beginning to gravitate towards the front-end strategy on the 200 free, although it does seem as if Sun’s ‘back-half devastator’ strategy is empirically superior. I remember someone had written about how it seemed that the majority of swimmers in the final in Budapest actually were going out too fast in comparison to historically fast times, excluding the wonky period from 2008-2009.
It seems that type of strategy came back after the suits were banned in 2009. With the super suits it was easier to get out a lot faster and then the swimmers still had the energy to come back in 52-54 seconds. A lot of swimmers seem to swim the 200 the way Hoogenband swam it, getting out in 50 or 51 the first 100 and bringing it back as best they could. The times are very similar (around 1:45 mid to low)
Coleman, I L-O-V-E this series of “Where are they now?” videos with former US National/Olympic Team swimmers! Keep up the good work!
I would be so down to go back to doing SCM on olympic years. LCM would be even more awesome, but I don’t think it could work logistically and would probably be unfair to a lot of teams training wise and qualifying wise.
The WR aspect of it Ian mentioned was another good reason for it.
Doesn’t impact very many people, but still cool.
Love the fact that he has a big diesel truck!