Article courtesy of Jan Homolak.
If you had the privilege of watching 2015 FINA World Championships in Kazan the last few days you were able to see some outstanding performances.
Adam Peaty’s world record in semis of the men’s 50-meter breast with sizzling time of 26.42 and Championship record on 100. Katie Ledecky’s crazy world record time on 1500 and Sarah Sjostrom’s breathtaking 55.74 in woman’s 100 fly. Katinka Hosszu’s outstanding 200 IM. Kazan2015 performances have certainly created a great pressure on writers to come up with new superlatives.
One thing that stands out in all this amazing performances in the pool is that there seems to be more and more little British flags on swimming caps during finals and semi-finals. Britain’s anthem also seems to be more and more popular with every big swimming competition.
Joking aside, Brits look great in the pool ever since London, and James Guy’s 1:45.14 victory over the swimming heroes like Sun Yang, Ryan Lochte and Paul Biedermann proves that the trend of British charge on the swimming podium doesn’t show the signs of stopping.
So what is happening with British swimming?
If you believe that slight increase in Britain’s fund for sports in preparation for London Olympics 3 years ago still allows swimmers to enjoy the royal treatment in athletic preparation today you must have mistaken swimming for football.
I don’t believe the money is the answer. I believe the answer actually lies in mysterious realms of human performance, still quite foggy field of sports psychology.
The fascinating similarity between the uprising of British swimming and something that happened almost forty years ago in British athletics came to me while watching interview with Lauren Boyle on swimming performance of American long distance queen, Katie Ledecky.
Boyle said something that immediately reminded me of citation from the “Run, swim, throw, cheat”, a great book by biochemist Chris Cooper.
Boyle said that Katie Ledecky is doing something extraordinary and that her world record marks show what human body can achieve, what other swimmers can achieve if they train hard enough.
This right there is a beautiful example of how psychological barriers are broken down.
In life and sport, the effect a role model such as Katie has on performance is surely significant.
Cooper talks about similar thing happening in athletics when famous runner Roger Bannister broke the four-minute-mile barrier in Oxford in 1954. Not so long before the 4-minute-mile barrier was smashed, Bannister’s great rival, Australian John Landy said: “Frankly, I think the four-minute mile is beyond my capabilities. Two seconds may not sound so much, but to me it’s like trying to break through a brick wall.”Yet forty seven days after Bannister’s run Landy broke Lannister’s new world record with a time of 3:57.9
In a way, swimming heroes of modern age such as Ledecky, Hosszu, Peaty and Sjostrom break psychological barriers just like Bannister did in Oxford almost every time when they step up on the starting block. Racing on your peak several times every day on the level of World Championship finals and semi-finals was thought to be impossible according to not so old exercise physiology textbooks, yet Hosszu climbs on the block time after time and proves that it maybe is possible after all.
This role model effect can also be analyzed on the level of the individual countries. To some extent I would say British swimming is reincarnation of British running phenomena from 1970s and 1980s.
In that time the world of athletics in Britain was dominated by the rivalry of two men, Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett who traded world records in 800m, 1500m and the mile on almost weekly basis. Soon after they began exchanging world records with other local athletes such as Peter Elliott, Steve Cram and Tom McKean. Practically, the great proportion of what was going on in athletics was taking place in the United Kingdom. If you were to get autographs from a few world record holders you didn’t have to travel the world, they were there, in your back yard and that accumulation of success makes everyone around feel good. In other words, watching your local heroes become heroes on the big scene makes you feel like the chosen one. It seems that if you see your teammate take down world record holder in 100 breaststroke something magically clicks in your brain saying it could be you changing the swimming history as well. Success attracts success as my best friend likes to conclude.
I believe something similar is happening right now for British swimming. Little British swimmers are looking at Peaty’s 191cm figure climbing the top step of the podium to receive shiniest metal and shake hands with Olympic winner while listening to anthem that is on the top of the playlist in far away cold Russia just because of him and his teammates. A bit older ones are thinking about following his steps and the ones that he races in pools of England are eagerly planning how to replace their’s role model’s name with their own on the team roster in times to come.
I also feel the world media push this effect even further. In the time of British medal harvest during the 32nd LEN European Swimming Championship in Berlin last year, the part of the internet interested in guys and girls splashing up and down the pool in the battle for the European crown in the capital of Germany, was flooded with articles claiming Great Britain was the next new chosen country for producing swimming giants. Right now, one year after, it seems that article titles were not so far from the truth. After all, even with both, men’s and women’s 400 medley relay teams missing out on medals on Sunday, Great Britain still ended up with solid medal count. Record number 9 to be exact – “better than planned” in the words of head coach Bill Furniss, less than expected in the future as one can assume from the amount of the medal thirst kind of energy coming from every single one of the guys on the team.
With only one medal seized at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona, and 900% increased effectiveness in Kazan, team of perspective juiced up racers and head coach who still wants to “raise the bar” I believe the only way for Brits is up. On the other hand, I’m eager to know how will the Americans respond, will the sleepy swimming giant awake on the wings of Ledecky and Michael Phelps screaming for his place on the podium from the Northside Swim Center. Steady rise of Asian swimming also announces that there’s more than a few ascending stars to look for in the future.
It’s an exciting time to enjoy swimming and I don’t have doubts there is more to come. More records to be smashed, more role models to be made, more stories to be told.
About Jan Homolak:
Jan is a longtime fan and swimmer from Croatia. He swims for ZPK under coach Pero Kuterovac. He is also a student at University of Zagreb Medical School and young researcher focused on the field of neuroscience and exercise sciences. He has been published in several peer reviewed journals and has given several lectures to different groups as well. He is the associate editor at Gyrus, academic journal published by the University of Zagreb and Croatian Institute for Brain Research currently indexed by the Google Scholar, DOI, CrossRef and HAW.
Strange use of the language “juiced up.” I assume he means excited – rather than on drugs – but it doesn’t come across positively.
I meant excited. I am a foreigner so I may not be as eloquent as the others. Oxford dictionary doesn’t enlist “on doping” under the phrase juiced up :). I am aware of its colloquial use though. I don’t have any information on the “medical care” of the GB team or any other team, however, I believe people jump on conclusions because they lack the knowledge on the subject of doping. Times of systemic doping are over. There is not enough money to develop doping smart enough not to be easily detected, and new doping usually comes together with scientific and medical breakthroughs. Methods of detection follow up quickly. The other important point is that urine and blood samples are… Read more »
Ridiculous? Really? He’s young, has huge scope for improvement and is currently ranked no.1 in the world (2.07.30). The only reason he didn’t compete in the 200m at Kazan was due to missing the trials due to illness. However, as evidenced by his bronze medal in the 100m (not his main event) he is in fine form going into the Olympic year. He won the 200m breaststroke at the Commonwealth Games last year, before taking silver at the Euro’s, so to say he hasn’t won anything is erroneous. Taking all into consideration I don’t think it’s ridiculous to say he could probably win the gold at Rio.
Pure jealousy! The French hate to see the Brits win, it’s as simple as that.
Along the same lines of this, I have felt this way last few years about the multiple tapers, swimming fast in consecutive meets, etc. I think its a bunch of BS, some of the coaches and swimmers I hear from about being able to rest again or carry a taper for weeks.
The biggest issue as we read here is on the psychology side, we have been taught for decades that you need to train for one meet and then hope for the best after that. I have a hard time believing that after months and years of training, swimming fast again inside of a month is so difficult.
We all know you don’t have to feel good to swim… Read more »
So why did Katie Ledecky swim unrested at the trials in 2013 so she could be fully rested for the World Championships?
BILLABONG, sun yang won the 400 and 800 frees without the so called juice.
Yes he did, in times that were well off his best.
The British performances last week were fantastic. If at the end of the London games anyone suggested that come 2015 Britain would have relays competing for gold it would have been dismissed as crazy.
GB missed the bronze medal in mens medley relay in 2012 by only 0.74 …
James guy is a fantastic racer, and his improvement trajectory suggests that he could go a low 1:44. We all know that a fit and motivated Angel could match (and beat)that, but those are two big caveats. The rest of the 200free crowd have stalled,this year. As for Sun Yang, he is not that good when he is off the juice. He couldn’t even race the 1500 free in Kazan without an emergency medical examination and prescription. Not worthy of further comment.
So we all have to cheer for the 19 year old guy who beat the “drug cheat”, improved from 16th in world ranking last year to 1st and improved his PB by about 1.7?
Errrr…..yes, that would be the sporting thing to do. No need to use parentheses around the phrase “drug cheat”.
Adam Peaty says he is worried about being beaten by drug cheats in the future. He has faith in the UK’s anti-drug efforts, but claims other countries are less strict. I would imagine that swimmers rom other countries might be offended by these comments.
Cool.
And in France some people think that GB swimmers and track cyclists are doped too. 😆
Very interesting to hear that from a guy who just destroyed the world record …
He comes from the same country as Wiggins and Froome, 2 guys who dominated Tour de France, but i guess this just shows that the system is really working.
I am not saying that he is doped, but why is it ok for someone who just destroyed the world record to walk around and suggest that everyone who beats him is doped?
He is basically saying: Either i win or i get beaten by a drug cheat