Why Australia’s No.1-ranked male swimmer isn’t flying with the team to Olympics
By Tom Decent
Cam McEvoy’s quest to become the first Australian male to win an Olympic medal in the 50m freestyle is being treated by Swimming Australia as a matter of extreme importance. The 30-year-old has been granted special permission to remain in Brisbane on a personalised training program while the rest of the team leaves for France this week.
The first Australian pool swimmers departed for Europe on Wednesday, ahead of another group on Saturday, following a successful Olympic trials in Brisbane last week.
The Dolphins start with a training camp in Canet, close to the Spanish border, before assembling in Chartres on July 13 for an Olympic pre-staging camp. The Olympic swimming program begins on July 27 in Paris.
However, McEvoy, a veteran of three Olympics and the oldest member of the team, won’t arrive in France until next month.
McEvoy’s 50m freestyle gold medal at last year’s world championships in Japan capped a remarkable comeback three years after the sprinter had all but retired from the sport.
His remodelled training program, with a greater focus on strength and resistance training, as well as fewer kilometres in the water, has been a major talking point among 50m freestyle specialists around the world.
Cam McEvoy books his ticket to Paris last week at Australia’s Olympic swimming trials. Credit: Getty Images
Dolphins teams traditionally travel together but McEvoy and his coach Tim Lane put forward a proposal to Dolphins head coach Rohan Taylor in October.
McEvoy does a portion of his training at the Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS), where he and his team analyse every component of his stroke and technique. McEvoy uses a 25-metre pool fitted with measuring equipment for 100-per-cent efforts.
“They felt the disruption to his training off the back of trials, with travel and adaptation with jet lag, would potentially slow him down and be a risk for them,” Taylor said.
“He needs the standardised equipment like the KPASS block (Kistler force-instrumented starting block) at the QAS to measure and really help him progress through his stages of preparation.
“It was better for him to stay and continue his prep because he’s training so specifically and uses such specific stuff, like the indoor pool, the cameras, the blocks and the resources the QAS have. He trains uniquely this way and no one else really does … so I felt like I was happy to support that.
“Cam and his coach Tim [Lane] will come over on July 7.”
McEvoy won the men’s 50m freestyle comfortably at the Olympic trials in a time of 21.35 seconds and is aiming to go faster in Paris than the personal best and Australian record time of 21.06 he clocked during a maiden individual world championship victory last year.
Trials fell during the first week of a new training block for McEvoy, who is the only Australian male with a No.1 ranking in an event, based on best times this calendar year.
“I’ve got a couple more weeks where we’ll suit up and do a lot of race replication and just get adapted to these new speeds that I’ve hit all year,” McEvoy said.
“All year I was 21.8. Now I’m low 21. I’ll just get as much volume of that under my belt as I can, fly over to France, then rest off the back of that.
“I got the concept from the UK speed cycling team. They tapered it into a mock event, hit personal bests for the first time, and then that exposure to those PBs they adapted to, tapered off the back of that, and then got that extra 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 per cent [gain].”
McEvoy, dubbed ‘The Professor’ by teammates, is studying a bachelor of science, majoring in physics and mathematics.
Cam McEvoy after his 50m freestyle gold medal at the world swimming championships.Credit: Getty
His revolutionary approach to sprint training, with a world-class coaching and sports science team around him, has given Taylor the peace of mind to let the oldest swimmer on the Olympic team have a degree of autonomy.
Despite Australia’s decorated history in Olympic freestyle events, no Australian has won a medal – let alone gold – in the men’s 50m freestyle. The closest was Ashley Callus, who came fourth in 2008.
McEvoy picked up a silver medal at the world championships in Doha earlier this year in a time of 21.45. However, his times in the heat (21.13) and semi-final (21.23) would have been enough for gold.
“I’ve done 10 sub-21.5 times since trials last year. Prior to this, I had only gone under that once in my entire career,” McEvoy said.
Taylor added: “My job is to support that performance. It’s that fine balance between not letting it be a free-for-all. We think it’s the right thing.”
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