Phelps On Fire
At Swim Smooth we focus mainly on freestyle distance, open water and triathlon swimming but it would be rude not to mention Michael Phelps who has incredibly won two more gold medals taking his overall Olympic Gold tally up to an insane 21! Beyond any shadow of a doubt the greatest swimmer of all time, who’s to say he won’t add to this tally over the next few days? Here at Swim Smooth we certainly hope he can.
 |
| Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners. Whilst you would hardly call the great South African swimmer Chad le Clos a “loser” – this picture does tell a very poignant tale about focusing on your own race and being the best you can be! |
Horton vs. Yang in the 400m Free
In perhaps the race of the meet so far, Australian Mack Horton touched out controversial Chinese swimming star Sun Yang by just 0.16 seconds to take the Gold. Claiming the win as one “for the good guys” Horton sparked outrage in China by saying Sun, who served a three-month ban for testing positive for a banned substance in 2014, was a “drug cheat”. This will only add spice to the 1500m freestyle, where they should clash again on Sunday night in the final (more on this below).
With this bitter war of words raging between the two camps, it would have been easy to miss a fantastic race. Two things we observed about Horton’s fantastic swim:
1. Amazing Pace Awareness. At the start of the race, British swimmer James Guy (GB) flew out well under world record pace, only to die in the last 100m and finish 6th. Horton conversely appears to accelerate as the race goes on, when in fact his 50 splits are very even until the final sprint:
| Horton 50m splits: | Guy 50m splits: |
| 26.05 (from dive) | 25.87 (from dive) |
| 28.01 | 27.83 |
| 28.74 | 28.29 |
| 28.39 | 28.24 |
| 28.55 | 28.80 |
| 28.27 | 28.76 |
| 27.39 | 28.96 |
| 26.15 | 27.93 |
What we’re really seeing is Guy slowing down in the second half of the race (he is still leading until just over 300m). Guy is the current world champion over 200m freestyle and whilst the commentators claimed he needs to go out fast and try to hold on, even as world champion, if you cook yourself, the result is going to be the same as you cooking yourself at the start of a CSS set – disaster!
Of course, what is really amazing about these times is if you have a CSS pace in the 1:40-1:50 /100m range, Mack Horton would nearly lap you twice in a 50m pool – crazy! One of our squad swimmers this morning suggested they should keep the two outer most “wash lanes” free for a mere mortal to swim against the champions to really give you a perspective on how quickly they’re moving!
2. Breathing Sides. Horton is at a distinct advantage over Yang in the final 50m as they are both breathing to their right but Yang is on Horton’s right. Horton can see Yang, Yang can’t see Horton. How important is this? See for yourself next time you’re trying to race someone in the next lane.
 |
| Mack Horton |
This reminded us of Ian Thorpe’s amazing 200m Olympic Gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics against Pieter van den Hoogenband (www.youtube.com/watch?v=WASQ36nkz6E) – Thorpe breathes to his right up the pool and left coming back – always keeping an eye on Hoogie – one reason why we’re so pedantic about mixing up your breathing sides when training!
Unstoppable Ledecky
Rapidly building a case as the greatest female swimmer of all time, America’s Katie Ledecky was unstoppable in the 400m freestyle, winning by 5 seconds and setting a new world record of 3:56:46 (try putting 14.78 into your Tempo Trainer Pro in a 25m or 50m pool and see how that feels!).
Much has been written about this driven 19 year old from Washington DC and why she’s so fast but let’s dispel one myth right now – she’s not fast because she’s got a super-long stroke, or because she’s trying to take as few strokes as possible.
In fact when you study her swimming, you can see that as one stroke finishes at the rear the next immediately starts at the front, which you can clearly see in this shot with the right arm finishing at the rear and the left hand tipping down to commence the stroke at the front:
Katie continuously and seamlessly transitions from one stroke to the next without any pause or glide in her stroke. She takes around 41-42 strokes per length, which is not an especially long or short stroke but backs this up with a very high stroke rate of 90 strokes per minute – and the combination is deadly. She’s found the perfect trade-off between stroke length and stroke rate for her and it’s paying her huge dividends, even if it goes against conventional wisdom that she should maximise her stroke length at all costs.
Katie is an absolute pleasure to watch swim and tends to be even stronger in the longer events, so expect more domination – and perhaps a lowering of her own world record – in the 800m freestyle final on Saturday night. In fact just as we write this Katie has also just taken the gold in the 200m freestyle as well – amazing!
A Well Paced Gold For Kyle Chalmers
Another amazing performance in the men’s 100m freestyle, this time from 18 year old Australian Kyle Chalmers, showing incredible maturity and calmness in the biggest meet of his life. Through the heats, semis and final Kyle showed brilliant pacing skills, coming through the field as everyone else slowed in the second 50m. In the final he turned in 7th (!) and came through for the gold. It just goes to show how important pacing skills are – even in a 100!