Hi FLA Jill,

Appreciate the heads up . . . but my minimum time for the 200 yard free for a true woman Shark is 1:48. Off the 1:55 pr, I would guess Tonya could hang on the toes of the main chase pack - but from that position, she had better be one heck of a runner. Maybe capable of running 16 flat. But, if she was capable of that, she wouldn't have been in the swim program at FSU - which is not one of the nation's elite programs. Instead she'd have been on full scholarship for track and xc at Stanford.

Lew

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Lew

It's not the first time I've seen your references about "minimum" swim times to access the international elite for World Cup racing and I've always been puzzled by how low they are.

My feeling, and I'm pretty sure you'll agree with me, is that there are plenty of women who can swim with the front group in ITU events that were nowhere near those times back when they swam competively.

Also my feeling as a coach, which I'm pretty sure you won't agree with me here :-), is that there are swimmers who swim too much to be good triathletes, be it by physiological, psychological or motivational circunstances.



Paulo

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

You may not have read my original article on the subject (it is probably archived on slowtwitch) . . . but the object of my analysis was not to produce athletes who could qualify to race as an elite and maybe work their way into the top 100 or so. Rather, my quest was to identify what skill set was required for an athlete with a legitimate chance for an Olympic medal.

I have no doubt that 1:55/200 yard women swimmers might be able to hold the toes of the main chase pack . . . but that, plus $4.00, will get you a tall latte at Starbucks. You get in that group, you better be able to run like the wind. On the other hand, swimming very, very fast - as Taormina, Lindquist, Reback, Harrop, and Hackett have demonstrated in nearly every major race over the past two years - gives you certain advantages. You might want to check out the results of today's race in Edmonton for more evidence of this phenomenom.

Lew

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Lew

Wasn't so much the swim time that caught my eye. 1:55 is good but not a yowza. But that she turned in a respectable run time without giving indication of having a run background. Not an elite runner, but there's maybe an interesting potential there.

I've known a lot of very fast female swimmers, faster than that, who couldn't break a nine minute mile if they were being chased by a chainsaw-weilding bear.

Well, if you know for a fact that those athletes you mentioned all fall into that minimum time for 200 or 400, then I do see your point.

But cycling and running courses also play a part in it, that's why it's called triathlon. And the Edmonton bike course is very different from the course in Athens. So I guess we'll see what happen on August 25, 2004 :-)



Paulo

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

Actually, the Athens bike course will be remarkably similar to the course Edmonton used for this year's elite race. Athens has two hills on the course: the first climbs at an average 9% grade for 700 meters and the second at an averge 4% grade for 1100 meters. This year's Edmonton course had one hill which climbed at 9% for about 500 meters, plus another smaller hill (climbing back up the cloverleaf onto Groat Road) which was probably 6% for 300 meters. Both courses require six laps.

The similarities do not end there. Both bike courses are preceded by non-wetsuit swims - though the Athens swim could be MUCH tougher if you get the right wind and wave conditions (waves in the Edmonton pond couldn't get more than six inches even in a tornado). And both have flat runs - though the one in Athens is likely to be much hotter than Edmonton. Non-wetsuit swims favor the top swimmers, as do swims in difficult conditions.

NOTE: Sheila Taormina's pr for the 200 yard swim is 1:47, though she didn't swim it all that often. Her time in the 200 meter long course free on the gold medal relay team was 2:01. Barb Lindquist is certainly capable of equivalent times - after all, she nearly made the Olympic team in the 400 meter free. Laura Reback was an All-American swimmer at SMU and Becky Gibbs Lavelle was the same at LSU. Not every top swimmer can become a top triathlete - but it is my contention that, at least at the Olympic level, all top triathletes will from henceforth be of necessity top swimmers.

Lew

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Lew

nice little slam on FSU, Coach Kidder. Dont have to be a thorougbred and go to the finest private school to be a good swimmer. Lots of people keep getting better and better from their freshmen to senior year. Remember, an FSU swimmer won the St Anthonys amatuer race even though he wasnt in the elite wave. Never understimate a Seminole

Though the problem is finding the swimmers who are not athletically lost outside the pool. Tom Dolan would likely be a terrible triathlete, even though he always came across as one of those people with a superhuman pain tolerance.

Too bad Courtney Shealy is something like 6'4" and probably too tall for a triathlete. If she could stretch out the sprint speed and develop some slow twitch muscle, she's a tremendous all around athlete. Anyone that's got a swim WR to her name and the ability to play another very different D1 sport on the side (volleyball), it wouldn't be surprising to see her succeed in a third sport too.

lew, i've read some of your comments on this issue in the past and generally think that you are one of the few out there who seems to get it. you have to find swimmers with the right body type to be good runners. you are never going to teach an adult non swimmer to be able to swim with the big guns.

i think we also agree that there is a huge gap in men's racing. you don't have the small group of athletes that can make a break on the swim, so it always ends up a huge pack on the bike and the race comes down to the run.

some claim that it's because all of the men are good swimmers. i disagree. i think it's because none of them are at the level of the top women. the sport is just waiting for a few guys who can swim at that next level and change the race. waldo has shown that you can make a break, and while he is obviously a good swimmer, i don't think he's that exceptional.

i thought potts was going to really come in and shake things up. he's exactly the kind of guy usat should be looking for and i don't know why it took them so long to figure this out. but he's not doing what i thought he would. i will bet that in college his 500 free time was at least 20 seconds faster than doug friman's. but doug beat him out of the water in edmonton. maybe potts figures he's not going to do it alone so it's going to take a few more similar athletes to make it happen. anybody know if he's racing corner brook? i'm pretty sure waldo will be there so maybe the two of them can make something happen.

and as for the comment the last poster made - i didn't see a dig at fsu anywhere. just the realistic statement that a 1:55 200 free is nowhere near world class. i can get any average high school girl willing to work to that point. lew didn't say anything about the school as far as i could see. anyway....

brent

"i thought potts was going to really come in and shake things up. he's exactly the kind of guy usat should be looking for and i don't know why it took them so long to figure this out. but he's not doing what i thought he would. i will bet that in college his 500 free time was at least 20 seconds faster than doug friman's. but doug beat him out of the water in edmonton."

i wasn't at edmonton, and have no idea how it went, but i wonder about the start positions. i think doug has a much better world ranking, no? my understanding is that the start positioning favors those who've done a lot of ITU racing and generated the world ranking. that would make it harder for potts to use his good swim until he gets his ranking up.

otherwise, you've got to also realize that potts has a lot of catching up to do in the other sports, cycling especially. i'd suspect his swimming is going to take a bit of a back seat until he catches up in the other events.

btw, what happened to friman? potts was 13th, friman 31st (doug's otherwise had a great year).

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Sheila's theory is that start position doesn't matter - but (as she discovered), it sure does in Edmonton. Most ITU races start from a pontoon that is positioned perpendicular to the initial leg of the course. But in Edmonton, you start from the shore - and the line of the first leg is probably 15 degrees to the left of perpendicular. Plus, the first buoy is on the left about 150 meters out and the first turn is to the left.

Which means that if you start on the left, you have a HUGE advantage over those that start on the right (opposite to the current political calculus in the US of A). After watching the 2001 worlds, I reckoned it to be at least 15 meters farther to the first buoy if you started to the far right. That's not a problem if you are high in the ITU rankings, 'cause you get to choose early and can elect the left side of the start area. But if you are Andy Potts and are 87th going into Edmonton, you get what's left. Or, in this case, what's right.

Lew

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Lew

why, methinks the pundit made a pun! ;-)

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Marty Gaal, CSCS
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