Category: Competition

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Starts, Turns and Pacing

World Aquatics Championships provide a great opportunity to have a look at the difference in skills, and therefore the effectivness of the execution of race plans.

mywaterworld.life has put together this quick analysis of the Women’s 400 and Men’s 1500m freestyle events and the 4 x 100 freestyle relays.

FINA SC Champs 2022 MelbDownload

In none of the events were the diffences in reaction times and skills off the turns significant enough to affect the results in any meaningful ways.

The events featured are all longer events, or relays, but when you get down to the shorter ones (50s and 100s) , and especially as this is short coure racing, hundreths of a second make the diffrence between a podium finish and not even making a final. This equally applies in relays as there are multipel changeovers and corresponding reaction time. It is so important to make evey push-off and turn in training a skill development pririoty. And as for the starts and turns, try some box jumps and burpees.

Pacing for the distance events is critical so have a look at the tables and see how consistent the pacing needs to be – train that pacing.

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Plannning for 2023

2022 is quickly winding down so mywaterworld.life is turning its attention to a big 2023.

2023 will see the usual menu of club, state, regional and national championships and the, twice postponed, 2021 FINA World Masters Championships which are now back on the competition callendar commencing in Japan on 2 August 2023.

mywaterworld.life has just created a new 2023 Championship Preparation Planning page. That page provides masters swimmers with the entry point for planning their 2023 training and racing campaigns.

On that page, mywaterworld.life sets out the simple step (by contacting mywaterworld.life) that you can take to generate a season plan, based on your major and minor racing dates, and from where you wil be able to access to our 2023 resources.

For our Tasmanian friends, here is a snapshot of the initial high level level plan which you can download.

If you decide to print this high level plan, set your printer to print in “Landscape” mode.

TrainingPlan2023Download

Go to our planning page!

To keep up to date you can subscribe from here.

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LEN Masters Swimming Championships – Day 1

The LEN Masters Swimming Championships are now in full swing with racing on day 1 completed – the 800m freestyle for both women and men.

So how did they go?  Two LEN Records – one female and one male, a high standard of racing and great times across the genders and most age groups.

And now, turning to the winning times. The table below sets out the winning time in each age group. Times in Bold are the new LEN records.

An impossible task, to report on the results from 26 age categories, so here are the links to the downloadable results for each gender.

Results day 1 – including splits

FINA Point* comparisons

FINA points for age group winning times are a great comparative indicator of the standard of each age group competition at the championships. The benchmark for each age group and gender is the FINA world record for the event as at 31 December of 2021.

The table that follows sets out the FINA points achieved by the winning time in each age group.

The average FINA points for the winners in the age categories were 852 for the men and 784 for women. The FINA points for the LEN Record breakers are displayed in bold.

To get a better understanding of the quality of the results, a comparison to the 2022 Australian championships results may help.  At those championships, conducted at the site of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the average FINA points of the winners, with the events conducted in short-course mode, were 673 compared to 852 LEN for men, and 624, compared to 784 LEN for the women.   As one would expect, the standard at the LEN Championships was significantly higher and the points confirm that conclusion.

So that’s a bit of a look at the LEN Masters Swimming championships, Day 1.

Day 2 events are the men’s and women’s 400m freestyle and 100m butterfly. You can follow the results and the live stream from here.

* To avoid any confusion, mywaterworld.life points out that the downloadable LEN results include world record times (WR).  These are the WR times at the date of the LEN Championships. These may not be the same times used in the FINA points calculation, which, for Long Course events are the WR times at 31 December 2021.

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European Masters Swimming Championships*

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Pool Racing starts Sunday, 28 August.

If you are on the Australian east coast, remember the 8hr time difference. With racing starting in Rome at say 9:00 am, that equates to a 5:00 pm start on the Aus. east coast.

Five thousand competitors – now that is a sizeable meet so plenty of racing, starting with the 800s on Sunday. You can get the full racing schedule from here.

The championships are being conducted in two pools – the Centro Federale UNIPOL BluStadium di Pietralata and the Stadio Olimpico del Nuoto – takes some of us back to the 1960 Rome Olympics as that is the main site of the refurbished complex for these championships.

Racing is being live-streamed from both the competition pools.
Stadio Olympico – live stream and schedule
Stadio di Pietralata – live stream and schedule

Both pages have event and access to heat lists so you can follow your European friends or check out the form of your competitors.

If you spot something interesting that you think mywaterworld.life should share about these championships , please contact us.

*The image used in this post is from a screen capture from the official championship site.

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Update on the 2022 FINA World Masters Championships

It is only tentative at this stage,  but looks like this is going to be the schedule for the Masters Championships. 

Lots of water to flow under the bridge and possibly some heavy seas before these championships are up and running, starting with making the program final and the entry system being opened.

The promising signs are that the organizing committee is in the process of getting the medals designed and has called for volunteers for the championships. Japan is now also slowly opening up to international travel with Japan commencing to accept foreign nationals coming to the country for business trips, study abroad or technical training starting on Monday, 8 November (Japan Times.)    Still to come of course is news of when other visitors to the country will be able to enter Japan.

The current situation with vaccinations in Japan is that 73.6% of the population is fully vaccinated while 78.3% have had their first shot. The comparative percentages at 4 November for the USA are 58.3 % and 67.7%,  Australia 66.8% and 75.0% and France 68.3% and 76.1%

As for the numbers of new infections in Japan, on 6 November there were 230 with a 7 day average of 201.

It’s looking very favorable for the championships … at this stage.

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Kyle Chalmers – 44.84 – 100m Free World Record

How good is it to get first hand insights into what it took to set a new men’s 100 Freestyle World Short Course Record – Congratulations Kyle Chalmers!!!!

Out in 21.40, (0.32 under world record pace) and back in 23.44 for a new world record mark of 44.84 Wow!!

Thanks as well to Brett Hawke for the interview.

Kyle has been on a journey of racing over the past couple of months, maximizing that imense talent, and racing like he has never raced before.  One of the keys to that world record was Kyle’s racing schedule, week in and week out, and the opportunity to implement what he practices in real racing conditions.

I his own words, Kyle has “ finally started to figure it out”.  The constant racing enabled Kyle to work out and implement what he had to do to execute a great swim for that world record and execute he did.

The fruits of the work Kyle has put in can be seen in the break out off his start, the “execution into the walls”, leg speed in the turns, “pumping five fly kicks off the wall”, stroke rate maintenance, and hitting his goal time at the 50m split. 

Yes, the importance of the work off the wall. In the interview Kyle maintains that this is still “an area [he] needs to improve on to be the best in the world”. He also speaks about the role of his coach in pushing the skills aspect ”day-in, day-out”.  Kyle also talks about his breathing pattern – shows how individual that is.

Check out Brett Hawke interviewing Kyle Chalmers about his short course 100m freestyle world record.

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Nagoya

Travelling to internatonal events like the 2022 FINA World Masters Championships provides an opportunity to explore Japan. Research and planning is required for this adventure and mywaterworld.life likes to share the fruits of its research.

Touring around needs to be accompanied by a bit of training, especially if you are in Japan prior to the championships.

Why Nagoya? – well there are many resons – one being that it is on the bullet train route between Tokyo and Fukuoka . Why not stop and have a look around and while there you can still do your training.

The city has a rich history and is a major centre for industry and commerce (think Toyota). While there, check out the incredible railway museum, one of Japan’s best amusement parks and of course Nagoya castle.

mywaterworld.life has out together an information page, including the usual pool guide, which you can find on the Nagoya page.

You chould also check out this quirky video of Ten Things to do in Nagoya.

And now that the World Masters Games have been postponed (again) you have more time to travel around. Even more reason to compete at the FINA worlds.

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Heading to Japan for the 2022 FINA World Masters Championships

A guide to Hiroshima

Planning a trip overseas to FINA World Masters Swimming Championships provides an opportunity to visit new places, learn about the culture of your fellow swimming competitors and the country the championships are being staged in, indulge in the local cuisine and visit some special places.

Driven by the need to find pools to train in, mywaterworld.life started compiling material about a number of cities in Japan. That initial research then led to the idea of sharing that material with those that are thinking of heading to Japan and Fukuoka in particular.

The first city of focus, for a reason that has now escaped, was Hiroshima, so check out what mywaterworld.life has put together about that city.

The next city that mywaterworld.life will look at will be Nagoya.

As usual, if you find mywaterworld.life a useful resource, then please subscribe and, if you have any information that you think could be shared, please contact us.

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MYWATERWORLD.LIFE awakens from its covid* induced slumber

After a break of a few months, mywaterworld.life has awakened from its slumber to see the world, with our Australian eyes, opening up to us. We sat here, quietly inactive, as much of Australia was effectively in lockdown and we were overcome by a miasma of despondency and wondering when we would return to some level of normalcy. After the silence for the last few months, we are now back up and running and enthusiastic again.  

Over the next few weeks we will start energising you with new posts, news items and a renewed focus on training. Australians are slowly coming out of lockdowns in a number of States and aquatic centres, with both outdoor and indoor pools, are progressively opening as well.

Australia’s vaccination rates are sky rocketing so the evening sky has turned pink and we are getting ready to go. We are now scaling the heights of vaccination rates and our most populous state, New South Wales has announced that it’s opening its border to international travel from 1 November 2021*.

As an opener, mywaterworld.life has set up a new page devoted to providing news and updates about the next FINA Masters World Championships.  You can check out the page from here or the menu link.

It’s great to be back and preparing new content!

  • Nothing to worry about on this count. No covid-19 at mywaterworld.life. We are double jabbed and have been since 9 August 2021. We hope you are fully vaccinated as well and looking after the safety and health of your friends and family as well as everyone else that you come into contact with.
  • [Editor’s Note – always read the fine print as at the moment (16 October 2021) it only applies to Australians that are fully vaccinated and landing in Sydney from 1 November.  For definitive details, check the Australian Department of Home Affairs Covid-19 website for the latest provisions.  https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/travel-restrictions