The SwimSwam Podcast

Jeremy Bagshaw had accomplished a lot in his 20+ year career in swimming. NCAA Champion at Cal Berkeley. Commonwealth and Pan American Games medalist. Multiple-time world championships qualifier. But one thing that had eluded him (4 times, going back to 2008) was qualifying for Canada's Olympic team.

Last month at the Canadian Trials, in what would have been his final race as a competitive swimmer, Bagshaw finished 4th in the 200 free, securing his spot on the Olympic team for the first time. Bagshaw had also just completed medical school in Ireland.

Listen to what the 32-year-old has to say about perseverance and challenging himself to strive for more in and out of the pool. Bagshaw turned his lifestyle of medical school and competitive swimming into a game for himself, always wanting to win the day whether in class or at training. In the end, it worked out well for Dr. Bagshaw, who will be competing in Paris next month.

Missy Franklin was a 5x Olympic gold medalist and world record holder in the pool. Now outside of it, Franklin is having just as much success. She's a parent (3-year-old daughter, Caitlin, with her husband Hayes Johnson), a member of the media (hosts the podcast Unfiltered Waters with fellow Olympian Katie Hoff), and an ambassador for the USA Swimming Foundation. In this episode, we discuss the upcoming Olympic Trials with Franklin, who will be in Indianapolis with the USA Swimming Foundation and as media. Trials are the most stressful environment in swimming and if you are there for more than a couple days, you ride the emotional roller coaster of someone chasing the Olympic dream whether you want to or not. Missy does a great job putting this into words and expressing her excitement at how the team looks to be shaping up as Trials loom. Outside of swimming, Missy has also been heavily focused on working with Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc. to raise awareness of autosomal dominant kidney disease (ADPKD). Readers can learn more on DiveIntoADPKD.com.

Olympic Champion Betsy Mitchell is a renaissance woman in the sports world, a 2-time Olympian, gold medalist, 7-time NCAA champion, former college swimming coach, and the current Athletic Director of Cal Tech.   Betsy's roots run deep in sport, which is why she's co-authored her first book with Ann Worthington, MORE THAN MEDALS, Lessons From An Olympian.  I say "her first book" because a follow-up will be coming soon. Betsy's forthcoming in this conversation, bringing wisdom and perspective to the topic of youth and college sports, which, right now, is a very chaotic and rapidly changing environment of lawsuits and rule changes. I hope you enjoy it.

This week on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we discuss a myriad of eye-catching swims over the last two weeks as many countries' Olympic Trials draw near.

Sam Hoekstra was an NCAA All-American for Louisville, graduating in 2013. Since then, Hoekstra has stayed close to the sport via coaching club and doing clinics for Fitter and Faster. Hoekstra wasn't swimming regularly, though, and certainly not sprinting regularly. However, after the idea of sprinting a 50 free for 100 days straight was presented to him, Hoekstra decided to give it a go. His first 50 was 22.2 (25-yard pool). After the first week, he switched from a brief to wearing a tech suit. He didn't do any in-pool warm-up or warm-down before or after the 50 sprint, but he did do a dryland warmup routine for safety and injury prevention. He didn't do any other form of exercise outside of this during the 100 days. On day 100, Hoekstra swam his fastest 50 of the entire experiment, 20.4. Listen to what Hoekstra learned during this process as well as what he will now carry over into his workout routine moving forward.

Blaire Anderson was recently named Director of Swimming & Diving at Texas A&M University, marking a big turning point in Aggie swimming history. With coaches Steve Bultman and Jay Holmes stepping down after their combined 60+ years at the helm of the respective women's and men's programs, Anderson looks to build upon the legacy that is already palpable in College Station. Anderson has already hired 3 coaches for her staff and is looking forward to continuing to build the network of people she trusts around her. The former UVA Associate Head Coach is excited at the potential that she sees for the Aggies moving from two separate programs into a combined one.

University of Virginia swimming hosted a media day for a number of their top athletes and coaches. Listen to Alex and Gretchen Walsh, Todd DeSorbo, Kate Douglass, and Jack Aikins field questions from the national media before the upcoming US Olympic Trials next month in Indianapolis. 

SwimSwam's Coleman Hodges sat down with Ben Loorz, the new head coach of swimming & diving at the University of Arizona. Loorz breaks down why this was the right move for both him and his family at this time as well as how he plans to start carrying out his vision for UofA in these first few weeks. Loorz is coming from UNLV, where he was the head coach for 8 seasons and produced NCAA qualifiers in all of them.

This week on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we discuss the Canadian Olympic Trials, the Mid-May flurry of meets in the US, and if any of the swims this past weekend moved the needle on the Paris Podiums. 

Joining us today, we have a man in his 33rd year of coaching college swimming, 28 of those years as head coach. He is a 4-time Big Ten Coach of Year. Today we have The Ohio State Director of Swimming & Diving, William "Bill" Dorenkott.

Chase Kalisz is a 2x Olympian and the reigning Olympic champion in the 400 IM. He's gearing up for his 4th Olympic Trials, which are just one month away, with a training camp in Colorado Springs. His coach there, Bob Bowman, has thrown some pretty gnarly sets at him throughout the last couple weeks, which Kalisz explains. The former Georgia Bulldog also speaks about recovery away from practice, his mentality heading into his 4th Olympic Trials, and the importance of his sponsors heading into Indianapolis.

This week in the SwimSwam Breakdown, we discuss the Brazilian Olympic Trials, the Sydney Open, and the upcoming May Meets in the USA

Olympic medalist and World Champion Alex Walsh and NCAA swimming superstar  Gretchen Walsh, take us behind the scenes of their latest SPORTI collab, the Star Spangled Summer Collection.  The collection is inspired by Americana vibes as a nod to the country’s, and the sister’s, collective spirit going into the 2024 Olympic Summer. Coming off of UVA's 2024 NCAA Championship Team Title, the Walsh Sister dove right into their SPORTI photo capture for this collection.  They only took a few days off.  They did the photo shoot and launched their STAR SPANGLED SUMMER COLLECTION May 8th.  A lot had to happen to make this collection a success. We talk about that process, and we look ahead to the Olympic summer and the Walsh Sister's goals in the pool.   Notably, Alex unpacks her decision to take a 5th year UVA...and she was on the fence about doing it.  The Walsh Sisters cover a lot of ground in this podcast. We hope you like it!

Matt Leach was recently announced as the new head coach for Iowa State Swimming and Diving. This surprised many as Leach had massive success at his last stop, Washington State, and most likely could have landed a job at a more traditional powerhouse. However, Leach explains that his first priority is family and his wife's parents live nearby. He also dives into his coaching journey and why building a team into a family is much more fulfilling to him than having the status of coaching at a Top-10 swimming program.

Tunisian swimmer Ahmed Hafnaoui, the reigning Olympic gold medalist in the 400 freestyle, will not be competing at the upcoming 2024 Paris Olympics. According to Africa Aquatics, this news was revealed by Tunisian Olympic Committee head Mehrez Bousyan on a televised sports program and had also been confirmed by Hafnaoui himself.

Olympic and world champion Kyle Chalmers just had one of the best in-season meets of his career last month at the Australian Open, going lifetime bests in the 50 free (21.9) and 50 fly (23.1) as well as a 47.6 in the 100 free. This is coming on the heels of moving clubs to train with Ash Delaney at St. Andrews on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

This week on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we discuss Summer McIntosh's potential lineup for the 2024 Canadian Olympic Trials, a high school swim team getting locked out of their section meet, and the major moves that have happened so far in the NCAA off-season.

During the 2024 Polish Swimming Championships (which qualify swimmers for the 2024 Olympics in Paris this summer), a swimmer in the Women's 200 IM final ended up in the wrong lane halfway through the race and ended up getting disqualified for it. We discuss how this happened, why it was a DQ, and what questions this raises about the rules for this race.

SwimSwam Co-Founders Braden Keith (Editor-in-Chief) and Mel Stewart (CEO) sit down to divulge how the story of 23 Chinese swimmers testing positive and walking away unscathed unfolded over the weekend and what it means moving forward.

Stewart and Keith discuss USADA's role in breaking this story, what WADA's independent investigation could bring to light, and the plausibility that this was actually caused by a contaminated kitchen vs intentional doping.

2x Olympic Champion and now 3x British Olympian James Guy spoke with SwimSwam after it came to light over the weekend that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for TMZ in January of 2021. Early in the week, Guy had tweeted "Ban them all and never compete again" and expressed similar frustration today, namely in WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) for allowing such a situation to occur.

On Friday, April 19, sources told SwimSwam that the gold-medal-winning Chinese women's 800 Free Relay from the Tokyo Olympics would be disqualified and that the silver-medal USA women's team would be bumped up to gold. The next morning, the Herald Sun reported that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for TMZ in January of 2021 at a training camp, just a few months before the Tokyo Olympic Games. Many of those athletes went on to win medals in Tokyo. No one had heard about this until now.

Brendan Burns is coming off of a career NCAA performance where he not only defended his NCAA title in the 100 back but also made 3 NCAA A finals for the first time. Burns reflects on his time as an Indiana Hoosier and what's next for him in and out of the pool.

Today on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we discuss the myriad of high-level meets that occurred last week, including the Pro Swim in San Antonio, the Canadian Open, and South African Trials.

Daniel Roy was a 5 time All-American at Stanford, where he holds the team record in the 200 breast. He was the 2017 Junior World Champion in the 200 breast. In mid-March at the Federal Way Sectionals, just two and a half months into his comeback, he dropped at 2:09.57 which places his 7th in the world in the 200 breast this year.

Bob Bowman was officially introduced as the Director of Swimming & Diving at the University of Texas on Tuesday, giving a press conference in the UT Football stadium. Listen to what Bowman has learned throughout his time at NBAC, ASU, and Michigan that he will carry with him to Texas and how he plans to balance training his pros in Tempe with his new responsibilities in Austin.

In 2008, Arizona State cut the swimming program, but it was saved and maintained by a grassroots fundraising effort by students, coaches, and alumni. In 2015, ASU hired Bob Bowman to revitalize the program. And now, 9 years later, the ASU men have won their first NCAA team title in program history. 

Leon Marchand defended his NCAA title in the 400 IM tonight, although he was over 3 seconds slower in the event than he was last year. This was just one night after he DEMOLISHED the NCAA record in the 500 freestyle. What was going on there?

Leon Marchand demolished the US Open and NCAA record in the 500 freestyle, swimming a 4:02.31. For context, the NCAA record had been lowered by a total of 2.6 seconds in the last 29 years. Marchand just lowered it by 3.9 seconds.

It's only night 1 of the 2024 Men's NCAA Swimming Championships and only 2 relays were swum... but 4 NCAA records were broken.

Going event by event, we dissect which records have the most and least probability of being broken this weekend at the 2024 Men's NCAA Championships in Indianapolis.

Virginia junior Gretchen Walsh just went 7-for-7 at the NCAA Swimming Championships, breaking NCAA records in all 3 of her individual events, swimming on 4 winning relays, and helping UVA to a team title. Is this the best swimming performance EVER at an NCAA Championships? We pulled some of the other historically great performances from NCAAs (from the 2000s) to compare them to Gretchen's meet.

Russell Mark is an internationally recognized stroke analyst and swimming guru, aiding athletes worldwide to be their best in the pool. Mark has spent the last year and a half as a staff member of ASCA compiling an extensive video library of swimming techniques and drills. This library can be used by coaches and athletes to perfect swimming in both practice and racing. Listen as Mark goes in-depth on what he's learned through his time with ASCA and putting together this library.

This week on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we preview the 2024 Women's NCAA Championships, review the New South Wales Championships, and predict if Regan Smith will rejoin the NCAA. 

20-year-old Erika Fairweather won her first world title in Doha last month, touching first in the 400 free while also winning medals in the 200 and 800 free. The Kiwi swim star reflects on her experience in Doha and tells us about her training environment in New Zealand and how she's approaching the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris.

This week on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we discuss the 2024 Men's NCAA Pre-Scratch Psych Sheets, Men's Pac-12 Championships, and the Pro Swim Series stop in Westmont.

Sporti, in collaboration with Olympic Silver Medalist swimmer, and 2024 Paris hopeful, Emma Weyant, is proud to announce the launch of their Riviera Reverie swim and activewear collection. Inspired by the timeless elegance of the French Riviera, this collection offers an array of training swimsuits, activewear, and swim caps designed to blend performance with style, inspired by one of Emma’s favorite destinations that she has traveled to.

As it turns out, Caeleb Dressel’s block malfunction in the 50 free A Final in Westmont was just the beginning of the errors that would occur during this race. When the swimmers finished the race and looked up at the scoreboard, as did the rest oof the venue, the scoreboard was black.

Turns out, the timing system had failed to activate. In that case, Per the USA Swimming Rulebook, backup stopwatches (operated by human timers) determine the finish order and times of the event. The results were announced over the loudspeaker, with Jack Alexy placing 3rd (21.90), Santo Condorelli placing 2nd (21.87) and Caeleb Dressel placing 1st (21.84). This was a surprise to many on deck because, at first glance, it had looked like Alexy had won in a close race with Dressel.

When you go back and look at the finish, it looks plausible (to me) that either Dressel or Alexy could have won, with Condorelli touching right after both of them. It seems that the results from the touchpads may have been different than the results garnered from the stopwatches, but alas, we will never know.

The fun didn’t stop there, however. Swimmers in the A Final were offered a time trial for a chance to improve their time. Times swum in this time trial would not count towards the official results of the race but they would count for official times. This ‘re-swim’ was contested at the conclusion of the A and B finals. Notably, Jack Alexy swam a 21.86, .04 faster than his official result. Caeleb Dressel and Santo Condorelli did not participate in the re-swim.

See USA Swimming’s statement on the matter below:

During the final of the Men’s 50m freestyle, the automatic timing system failed to activate. As outlined in the USA Swimming Rulebook, backup stopwatches determine the finish order and times when a timing system fails. The finish order and times from the final are official. However, swimmers in the final were offered the opportunity to swim the event again as a time trial at the end of the session for a chance to improve their times. Certification of the times swum in the time trial is pending review by World Aquatics (AQUA).

At the 2024 Doha World Champs, Claire Curzan became just the 3rd athlete (Qin Haiyang and Kaylee McKeown) to sweep all 3 individual events of one stroke at a LCM world championships. Curzan shares her thoughts on the meet and gives insights into how she's been training at her new home in Charlottesville. The soon-to-be sophomore said she's been doing more aerobic free to build a base for her 200 back and a lot of underwater work, which serves her well in finishing her LCM races.

Athlete-coach relationships are an integral part of youth sports and often numerous lives, including the athlete, their parents, and the coach. But where is the line between healthy coaching and unhealthy coaching? When is it "tough coaching" and when is it abuse? SwimSwam sat down with Kathryn McClain, MSW, MBA, Program and Partnerships director at We Ride Together, a nonprofit organization created to cast light upon the endemic issue of sexual abuse in youth and amateur sports. Kathryn discusses the key differences between healthy and unhealthy coaching and how coaches can change their mindset, language, and actions to better serve the athlete in the short and long term.

Finlay Knox won his first world title, and Canada men's first since 2007, at the Doha World Championships in the 200 IM. We saw many backstrokers in Doha hitting the lane line during their races and Knox explained that the ceiling wasn't straight, so the competitors swimming backstrokes were not always swimming in a straight line. Knox explains that he got lucky by landing in lane 7 for the final, where a pillar was straight across the ceiling to follow during the backstroke leg of the 200 IM.

NC State's men won their 3rd straight ACC title (and 9th in 10 years) last week in Greensboro. Head coach Braden Holloway gives his thoughts on both the men's and women's teams and their performances at the conference championships.

The University of Virginia women won their 5th straight (and 20th overall) ACC team title this past week in Greensboro while the UVA men placed 5th. Head coach Todd DeSorbo shares his thoughts on how his team performed overall at the conference championship.

NC State’s Owen Lloyd touched the wall in 14:37.04 in the 1,650 free, ostensibly winning the ACC title. In celebration of his victory, Lloyd mounted the lane rope, eventually falling into the lane of his teammate and the runner-up Ross Dant, who was two seconds behind. While Dant, who was stroke-for-stroke with Lloyd for most the race, had finished his swim before Lloyd fell into his lane, some swimmers of the heat had not (Jordan Yanchev in lane 8 was about 50 seconds back). Lloyd was declared disqualified after the completion of the race. “Interfered with another swimmer” was the official declaration on the results as the reason for the disqualification. Dant, who finished in 14:39.34, was declared the winner. Owen Lloyd and Ross Dant joined SwimSwam to give their full perspective on the matter.

The Indiana women's swim team upset the 4-time defending champion Ohio State Buckeyes last week to win the Big Ten Championships. The 4-day meet came down to the last event, the 400 free relay, where Indiana touched 2nd and Ohio State touched 3rd, netting Indiana the victory by .5 points. Indiana head coach Ray Looze spoke to SwimSwam and reflected on everything that went into the win, emphasizing that they just wanted a chance to win the meet when it got to the last event.

Piper Enge is a junior national champion, high school senior, Texas commit, and now world championships finalist. After placing 18th in the 100 breast prelims at the 2024 World Champs in Doha, Enge was determined to make it out of prelims in the 50 breast. The Seattle native discusses how she not only accomplished that goal but made it all the way to the final and gained a lot of confidence through the process.

The George F. Haines International Swim Center closed indefinitely last month, due to safety concerns around the facility. The ISC is home to the Santa Clara Aquamaids, Santa Clara Diving, and the world-famous Santa Clara Swim Club. Third-year SCSC Head Coach, Kevin Zacher, has been on USA Swimming’s National and/or Junior National coaching roster since 2012. He has led Junior National and Junior Select camps, been part of two international USA Swimming staffs, and developed international-level talents like Ryan Hoffer and Taylor Ruck. Kevin is the guest on the SwimSwam podcast to talk about the challenges facing the Santa Clara Swim Club without the use of the ISC. He talks about how they got to this point, what they’re doing to fix it, and how he keeps a level head for himself and his team during this tough time.

Katja Dedekind is a 2x Paralympian, 2x Para world champion, and Para Commonwealth Games champion. Competing in the S13 (visually impaired) classification, Katja has racked up numerous accolades over her career which started when she was just 15. Dedekind discusses having a pro career, choosing swimming over goalball, and why swimmers are adrenaline junkies.

Gretchen Walsh is having a heck of a week in Greensboro. She has become the first woman to swim under 20 seconds in a 50 free (19.95 on a relay), broken NCAA records in the 50 free (20.57) and 100 fly (48.25), and went a best time of 1:40.2 in the 200 free (#3 performer all-time). On her morning off, Gretchen was kind enough to sit down with SwimSwam and analyze her historic swims so far at the 2024 ACC Championships.

At the 2024 World Championships in Doha, Kate Douglass swam a 23.91 50 free, good for silver behind world record holder Sarah Sjostrom. That broke the previous American record held by Simone Manuel.

Douglass explains that getting through Sarah Sjostrom to reach the top of the podium is an obstacle that many have tried and few have succeeded. She has been training for the 200 IM and she is the reigning world champion in it, so she feels more confident in focusing on that event (that does overlap with the 50 free at the Olympic Trials and the Olympic Games).

Dan Wiffen won Ireland's first (and second) world championship medals ever last week in Doha, earning double gold in the 800 and 1500 freestyles. Wiffen takes us through his entire process at the meet and after hearing it, you can see how dialed into distance swimming he really is. For example, in the 1500 prelim, after seeing Florian Wellbrock throw down a quick 14:48, Wiffen knew he only had to swim around 14:54 to make the final. Knowing those around him would be sticking with him, Wiffen paced his race accordingly to see if he could lure any swimmers into accidentally swimming too slow to make the final. Greg Paltrinieri, the 2022 world champion in the event, did just that, swimming right next to Wiffen and ultimately placing 9th in the prelim, missing the final.