The Water Is My Sky documentary film teaser just went live, and it has our attention.
The opening line:
“So I’ve found that…many swimmers (think) it’s a cruel sport…”
Rowdy Gaines, 3-time Olympic medalist from the 1984 Olympic Games, responds:
“Cruel?” Rowdy nods slowly, “Yeah… Our sport is not for the faint of heart. Doesn’t matter whether you swim through college or the rest of your life or you quit tomorrow…it’s where dreams are made or broken.”
Rowdy and the filmmaker of The Water is My Sky… you had us at cruel. So true, it can be cruel, but the investment in the sport is so worth the payoff. That’s clearly where the storyline is going and it looks great. Can’t wait to see the rest.
EDITOR UPDATE: The producer and filmmaker is former Iowa swimmer Brian Tremml.
You can follow Brian Tremml on Twitter here.
Via Youtube:
Introducing: ‘The Water Is My Sky,’ a feature length documentary aiming to explore the world of elite competitive swimming.
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I would like to see the documentary to get the full story. As a former Canadian Paralympic swimmer, earning a spot on the 1984 Paralympic team, it was hard work and it was dream making and dream breaking experience.
Would I do it again? You bet I would!
I coach young swimmers now, passing on my experience. Yes many of them have dreams. They also know how difficult it is to be the one, the elite, the choosen one. They realise and understand their limits. They go after the goals they have set. They go after new personal best times. They go after all that they can get.
What I have found from the many young swimmers is a compassion… Read more »
I thought the point of swimming was to reach their own personal best level. Obviously not everyone can be a world champion! But the point is personal success is defined by personal best. Comparison is the worst thing to do, you always lose in this game (speaking from personal experience)
I would say that the image it has of being cruel stems from its genetics based success requirement COUPLED with hard work (with the emphasis mainly on genetics). As someone who grew up swimming I saw too many swimmers who loved the sport and worked hard, simply get passed by kids who developed the right way when they didn’t. The nature of the sport is pretty cruel for kids who worked this hard throughout their youth when all along they really had no chance to be great.
Yes, swimming truly is a cruel sport. Think about all the kids who practice every single day and truly try their best. Only to always be placing 30th at State meets (if they are lucky!). Swimming 4 hours a day and then swimming your race in the final meet of the season only to have improved half a second in your 200 free time that year. Again, if you are lucky! Maybe you swam 3 seconds slower in your 200 free time than you did a year ago, despite all that practice and hard work.
You can have the getting up at 4:30 am on cold winter mornings, diving into cold water, getting bronchitis every other week, being tired… Read more »
Soccer, track, baseball, ballet, cycling, gymnastics, wrestling, football, tennis, rowing — a lot of athletes train hard and hope to improve, even in small increments, and even if they do they still may place 30th. I think that’s just sport. It’s not cruel.
Yeah, but playing with a ball with your friends is a lot more fun than swimming back and forth alone in a cold water for 2 hours, isn’t it? I have been swimming for close to two decades but I would not do it again for anything. If I am going to be fortunate enough to have children I am not going to recommend them to do this sport competitively. If they want to I won’t stop them, I will support them, but not in any case will I push them toward swimming.
Love Rowdy, but why is the sport of swimming “cruel”? Because it comes down to one race of 1 or 2 minutes? I think the same can be said for most sports at the elite level. I think swimming competitions have fewer variables than other sports, and thus competition is pretty objective and fair.
…I think it’s the time you invest, 2 practices a day, year-round. It’s a tough sport.
Just a difference of opinion then. I swam doubles for 10 years through college, and still swim Master’s. Tough yes, cruel no.
Always loved swimming because, more so than in other sports, there is not a lot of subjectivity when it comes to our results.
I think what he’s getting at is that big dreams that people train for for years come down to one race (eg making the Olympics only to get 3rd or making a travel team in college only for a freshman to go) as opposed to other sports where, for instance, one strikeout isn’t the potential end of a career.