Lord, a long-time battler against doping and secrecy in sport, does the stats and concludes it improbable that a mature sprinter could drop 0.44 in one year after sitting at 22+ for years. He's right, it is improbable, and he asks the simple yet straightforward question, 'Tell us how it's done?'
It's not only Sullivan; in the post on 1 March I said,
... during February alone there were 28 long course swims faster than the 10th placed time on the all-time world list as at the end of 2007, never mind end 2004! ... in the women's 50m freestyle seven out of the all-time top-10 times have been done since 1 January 2007Dylan had it right, 'Something is happening and we don't know what it is, do we Mister Jones?' Or should that be Marion Jones?
Lord asks about Sullivan's injury-free year of training and that is obviously a clear reason to swim faster, maybe even to swim fastest. At world record standard and over 50m 0.44 is a big margin but I'm sure it's not unique. If you look at the progression of world records Tom Jager set his first 50 WR with 22.40. It was previously 22.52 so Jager's PB must have been slower than 22.52 when he went 22.40. Jager's last WR was 21.81 so he dropped, at world record standard at least 0.72. Ian Thorpe's first 200m WR was 1:46.34 and his last 1:44.06, and who can forget the incredible 24 hours in Barcelona in 2003 when the WR for 100m Butterfly started at 51.81 and ended at 50.96 having passed through the hands of three different swimmers in the interim?
There is Kiwi precedent for the big drop on 50m, unfortunately not at world record level. Toni Jeffs dropped her PB from 25.99 to 25.43 in one race, a bigger margin than Eamon Sullivan's. That was in 2002 after sitting on the low 26's for 12 years! She hit 26.3 in 1990, 26.2 in 1991, 26.0 in 1998. Her tenacity is demonstrated by the 1990-98 gap to move from 26.3 to 26.0 during which she was the subject of media interest which would have destroyed any other swimmer and the most non-sensicle selection rebuff I have ever heard - 'too old' for the 1996 Olympics.In 2004 she was the subject of a TVNZ series, Road to Athens. The blurb on the TVNZ website says,
Few names in New Zealand sport get a reaction like Toni's. The newspaper headlines tell the story; refusing to stay in the Barcelona Olympic village in 1992; sponsored by a strip joint; allegedly punched her coach; badly injured her back in a car crash; set New Zealand records; beat swimmers half her age to win the national title and won Commonwealth bronze after little training.Let's examine those headlines. Refusing to stay in the Village - that was 'advice' from her dominant coach at the time. Sponsored by a strip joint - she was, and she has a framed letter of appreciation from the 'joint'; Liks seems to be going strong and Toni definitely has some good tales to tell of that period. Allegedly punched coach - no 'allegedly' about it; I would have paid money to be on poolside when that happened. Badly injured her back in a car crash - well, if you call fractured vertebrae 'badly', then yes and guess which coach was driving at the time? Set New Zealand records - duh! Beat swimmers half her age to win the national title - she didn't have any choice, did she? Won Commonwealth bronze after little training - well they definitely got the last bit wrong.
'Little training', eh? As I said in a previous blog, in 2002 she was doing at least 35 hours a week of training. And it wasn't just floating up and down the pool doing 'garbage yardage', this was a full-on, total intensity approach to excellence. How do I know? I was coaching her at the time.
To recap: Toni was not selected for the 1996 Olympics because she was too old. In 1998 she won Commonwealth bronze. In 2000 she was not selected for the Sydney Olympics and, subsequently, successfully sued Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) for that decision. In 2001 she didn't swim. In October of 2001 she contacted me, we met and she made it clear she still had unfinished business. Her goal was the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and she had three things going for her - she was in the process of suing SNZ so had a point to prove, she wanted another medal, and she wanted her record back - it had been broken by Vivianne Rignall twice during 2000, the latest at the Olympics where Toni was denied selection. Rignall's record stood at 25.52 and Toni's best was 26.03; I suspect there are not too many 34 year old females who would contemplate attacking that gap!
The approach was exemplary. She had a new coach (me) and a new technique. At 34 she agreed to change the style of swimming she had used throughout her whole career. Quite frankly I couldn't understand how she even swam 26's with the style she had. From a high-elbow. bent-arm recovery she became a hand-swing, high-recovery, straight arm freestyler. New content was introduced into her water workouts, particularly 'supra-max sprints' which demand speeds in excess of those 'naturally' attainable by the swimmer. Fins (full-length but not scuba) and big paddles are required and the sprints must be at least 10% faster than the swimmer's 'natural' PB. The selection of the paddles is crucial - too small and the swimmer cannot generate enough power to swim really fast, too big and the swimmer cannot handle the power able to be generated. And the generation of power is the key to the success of these sprints. Drag increases as a cubic factor of speed - swim twice as fast and you generate eight times more drag. Swimming faster than you really can demands that you overcome more drag than you're ever going to encounter in a race; it's a really effective training regime but it has to be done correctly. Err on the slow side and you may as well go home. The trick is the speed; if the times are not at least 10% under PB then stop the exercise. Toni would target the world record from a long course push start and gradually got near to, then under it on a regular basis.
One of my 'themes' for swimming fastest is taking account of the invisible training. That describes the effect of the 20-22 hours each day when the swimmer is not at the pool. Toni had a superb professional approach to her life. She had the ultimate performance lifestyle. Mark Saunders, the NZ Team Manager for Pinnacle events described Toni as by far the most professional athlete on any teams he dealt with.
Toni assembled a support group which covered every aspect affecting performance. She is a magnificent cook so nutrition was one of the top items; only the best quality food (you'd be surprised how much difference there is between the cheapest offer of food and the 'best' offer of the same 'cut' or item). She also spent a small fortune on supplements - vitamins, minerals, energy-bars, carbo-powder, protein supplements, and was obsessive about the timing of intake before and after training. Her hydration was exemplary. Would that all swimmers took the same approach to energy intake; it would make energy output a much more straightforward issue.
Her 'Trainer', Peter, was one of the most innovative and impressive designers of land training I have encountered. She had exercises on Swiss Balls (plural) and medicine balls which made me go goggle-eyed. I've seen people do chest-passes with medicine balls while standing on Swiss Balls immediately after they've jumped on them from a run and Toni's exercise regime would stand up to that, no problem. Think about that. What do your swimmers do?
Aligned to the land training was a brutal flexibility regime. Flexibility is not about 'feeling loose', its about enabling the body to attain and maintain positions which are biomechanically advantageous and which, as a consequence, are not comfortable for 'normal' people. It was not unusual to find Toni in the midst of a one-hour stretching programme.
Do you notice something here? Toni was in charge of her programme. She was atypical in terms of the 'norm' of NZ swimmers. Admittedly, most NZ swimmers are age-groupers who need direction and control, but once they decide to go for high performance they have to take responsibility for, and be given the responsibility for, their own decisions.
She loved road cycling as both an exercise and a therapeutic exercise. She would think nothing of riding hard for 4 or 5 hours. Her bike training was designed by Ron Cheatley, twice winner of the Halberg Coach of the Year Award, and New Zealand’s cycling coach for 21 years, so it was no walk in the park. If you know Paikakariki Hill then imagine cycling up and down five time without lifting out of the saddle! That sort of thing enthused her.
She was fortunate enough to be able to build a gym in part of the property she shared with her partner. It included free weights (and if anyone's considering using machine weights, forget it, they're useless). At one point she had diverted from swimming into body-building so she understood muscles and weights. One of the most important principles in excellence is that the athlete must understand more of the physiology that the coaches from other programmes; Toni did just that.The swimbench protocols were prescribed by me and based on the DDR protocols described in my report from the German swim team camp at Flagstaff in 1992. They are classical in their design; they consider power application in swim-specific biomechanics - what else is there?
Add onto that, massage therapists, physiologists, yoga-teachers, aromatherapists, South American psychic adviser's - the list could go on and on. When Bill, Toni's partner and I periodically sat down and calculated the number of 'Toni's Quacks' we invariably arrived at more than 20, but the point is, she had every angle covered; in her universe no stone was left unturned. Truly a professional athlete.
Just as an aside, her start and kick both sucked. I blamed both on the car crash - crappy neural messages from the spinal chord resulting in inefficient activation of the leg muscles. I tried everything to circumvent it but I guess the problem of a car crash had a dampening effect on my efficacy.
Summing up; no stone unturned, attendance, application, attitude - a recipe for guaranteed improvement. Without the 'human' factor I could guarantee the same drops for any swimmer and Gary Hall's suggestion of doping support is unnnecessary.
... and this is the next generation of Toni and Bill's drive. He loves water; scary.
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