Second-year Chelsea Piers Aquatic Club (CPAC) head coach Matt Hurst insists that his Connecticut-based program is still in a rebuilding phase, but recent results would suggest otherwise.
At last week’s World Junior Championships, 16-year-old Annam Olasewere blazed a personal-best 24.95 in the 50-meter freestyle to earn silver and move up to No. 6 in the U.S. girls’ 15-16 national age group (NAG) rankings.
CPAC’s standout sprinter has thrived since Hurst brought his methodical approach to the program last June from Penn State, where he was the associate head coach in his final season. After going 25.44 at the NCSA Championships last July, Olasewere hit another gear this year with a 4th-place finish at April’s Pro Swim Series stop in Westmont (25.29) and a 25.08 at U.S. Nationals in July before her first sub-25 second time earlier this month in Israel.
“One of the nice things about Annam is that she likes to plan, she likes to talk, she likes to calculate,” Hurst said. “She’s scientifically minded, so she likes that bit of our coaching philosophy. She’s got a really good relationship with Aaron Montgomery, our lead senior coach. It took a village to create a 24.9, and we’re certainly not done yet.”
Olaswere’s ability to hold water out front separates her from the pack as she possesses a Usain Bolt-esque knack for maintaining speed.
“She’s got the build for it,” Hurst said of Olasewere. “She’s tall, she’s long, and she holds water really well in the front of her stroke. That’s not something a lot of people do. When we do dry land strength training, she’ll crank out pull ups like it’s nothing, and she does that in the water. She has a natural ability to hold on to the water. She and I have talked quite a bit about Usain Bolt, and how he’s not necessarily the fastest man in the first three or four strides of the race, but he holds his speed better than anyone else. And she’s very similar, if you watch her races, she’s better now through the first 15-20 meters than she was, but that’s not her strength. She’s efficient longer. In Israel, she had a 1.12 tempo and only took 19 ½ cycles. That’s 100 tempo for most women at that level, and she’s holding that for a 50 and translating that into 24.9. That ability to hold water out front and that natural instinct of maintaining speed are not easily taught, so those things caught my eye to begin with.”
Looking ahead, Hurst is just as excited for Olasewere’s future in the 100 free and 200 free as he is her 50 free.
“I don’t think her best event is the 50,” Hurst said. “As good as her 50 got this year, she’s seen tremendous improvement in her 100 and 200. She’s a 1:47 in the 200 (yards) down from 1:50 a year ago, so I think she’s only scratching the surface. I think the 50 will always be there for her, but I think naturally she’s better suited for the 100 and the 200.”
Hurst also chatted with SwimSwam about why he left Penn State for CPAC and how he describes his coaching philosophy. Check out his full responses below:
SS: What prompted the move from Penn State to CPAC?
MH: “Personally, it was predicated by a move to be closer to family. My wife is from Long Island, we met in college here in Connecticut, so we wanted our kids to be back closer to their grandparents.
And professionally, I’ve been coaching since I was 16 years old. I coached in high school and college partially to be able to pay for my ability to swim. I’m 40, but I’ve been doing this for 25+ years. Chelsea Piers wanted me to be a head coach. I’m a really good associate head coach — I had to give myself a shot to be the head coach. I think every coach at some point in their career thinks they have the chops to do it, has their ideas about how to best do it, and it was the right opportunity at the right time that was close to family.
This is the club that Alex Walsh and Gretchen Walsh swam for, Kate Douglass swam for, Maxine Parker swam for — so it was a known commodity in my space, it was geographically close to family, and I had the opportunity to be the head coach of the program so it was in many ways a no-brainer.”
SS: How would you describe your coaching philosophy?
MH: “I lean more toward quality than quantity. I think there’s a rhyme and a reason for what we do. I want to know the science behind things. I definitely believe in hard work, but I don’t believe in hard work for the sake of saying we worked hard. Even when I was an athlete, I wanted to know why we’re doing what we’re doing. I want there to be a level of agency and understanding and also continual improvement. Let’s not just do something because it’s the way we’ve always done it.
On the personal side of the sport, I really try to use the sport of swimming to help the athletes achieve the goals that they’re looking to get to — whatever that happens to be. For some athletes, it’s ‘I want to finish my high school career.’ For others, it’s ‘I want to get into the No. 1 school in the country academically or athletically.’ When kids come through the Chelsea program, they’re not only getting a physical progression, but a mental, emotional, and social progression so that we can help them on the other side of their time with us.”
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