At the TYR launch event for their new tech suit, the TYR Venzo, SwimSwam caught up with Simone Manuel and spoke with the Olympic and world champion about her summer after the US nationals. Simone expressed similar sentiments as many of the other national team athletes had, saying that it was a quick turn around from nationals to pan pacs and therefore difficult to translate speed into the water.
https://youtu.be/cZVVGSVj2wY
Specifically, Simone said it was hard to adjust to the 13 hour time difference of Tokyo, and that she couldn’t sleep well during the trip. Consequently, when she would go to the pool for finals she’d find herself more tired than normal, and even yawning in the ready room, which isn’t an ideal state of mind 5 minutes before trying to go the fastest your body can manage. Walking away with 4 silver medals, Manuel stated that it was necessarily the swimming experience that she had wanted, but she would take it as a learning experience moving forward and try to adjust for future meets.
She did, however, seem relatively pleased with the times she put up given the circumstances. Though she did say it’s all “what if”, she seemed to be in a good place heading into the meet, which could bode well for the future.
African – Australian beats African – American . The diversity bit in her contract got honoured but she not happy ?
Another golden swimmer affected by USA Swimming’s atrocious Pan Pacs planning. All the USA swimmers were affected, to some degree, some more than others for sure, especially early on. I hope they keep letting USAS know.
Like you , I hope the instances of Swimming Usa take note of the feedbacks given by the swimmers so far