Ha - you couldn't be more wrong about that!

I swim more than the large majority of triathletes - specifically because I KNOW I still have room to improve - but it's tempered with the knowledge that I'm probably at the point of really diminshing returns, and swimming 30, even 40k, probably will yield poor time dividends compared to bike-run.

The talent limiter is real for me though - it's very clear from my prior results and subsequent race results over 10 years that I'm not a natural swimmer. In fact, I'm almost certainly a below-average swim talent guy. DOesn't mean I'm going to quit trying, and I've managed to swim my way to almost the FOP in the triathlons I do. But I'm crystal clear in that I'm NEVER going to catch those few front guys, the ones who are beating me by like 4+ minutes in an Oly swim (and can still beat me or keep up on bike-run). That's a talent limiter, and any coach, including you, who tells me I can 'win the swim' in competitive AG triathlons had I just trained better/harder on the swim, is totally full of it. (I've been AG 1st in the swim in a few Olys I've done, but that's still eons away from the top 1-4 overall swim guys, its not even close!)

And just to be fair - I'm also not catching any of the guys who are running or biking 4+ minutes faster than me, ever. There just happen to be fewer of them compared to swimming. In running, nobody here tries to tell a 40-minute Oly-runner that 'just trainer more and better - you'll catch the guy who's running 34-35.' They'll tell you the reality - that 34-35 guys is just TOO FAST for you, you'll never catch him. And they are right.

Lionel still needs to bike-run at top-elite level. Of course, he can swim faster if he became a pure swimmer for awhile, but that's not really relevant - he needs to be able to swim top-elite-tri level while realistically maintaining bike-run at the level he needs. This is at leaset potentially a major talent issue - improving on limited time and training energy due to competing demands of bike-run. If you are so convinced you know better than his other swim coaches, you really have to at least message him and tell him (and share with us!), what he needs to do to swim meaninfully faster while not losing his run-bike ability.