Bad Strategy...or Bad Swim?!

America Stunned at World Championships

     Ricky Berens split a :48.56 in prelims, only to get bumped in favor of Ryan Lochte, who wound up splitting a :47.80 – exactly, and I do mean exactly, the difference between gold and silver for the relay.  Lochte has admitted he isn’t in the best shape heading into these championships, but he was put on the relay anyway because the coaching staff thought he was “fresh”.  

     Nobody likes a Monday Morning coach, but in a sport so non-subjective as swimming, it shouldn’t have been that hard to figure out who was really “fresh”.  

     Did the coaches get lulled into thinking Lochte channeled his inner Phelps, or did he just have a bad swim??

Finding New Swimmers

 Finding New Swimmers...

     USA Swimming announced a bold new initiative recently, with its main focus to get more participation in the pool.  Similar to initiatives launched by USA Hockey, USA Tennis, and the PGA – USA Swimming is realizing that other sports are taking their future into their own hands and recreating their sport to different age, gender, and socioeconomic groups.  

     Swimming has been a good sport at retaining its “clients”, but not great compared to other sports for participation, and that competition is growing.  So USA Swimming has a problem…..

     I believe that adapting to a model serving more dual meets, shorter, faster and fun events is going to do a lot more to get people involved than by trying to recruit athletes in parts of the country that don’t have pools.

Question – What should the sport of swimming do to increase participation?