SWIMMING: Cameron McEvoy learnt an enormous amount at the London Olympic Games as an 18-year-old relay swimmer.
Now in ominous signs for his rivals he says that the experience gained from the World Championships in Russia this year has him poised to be ‘really good’ at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
In Kazan, the 21-year-old won 100m freestyle silver and then brilliantly anchored the medley team to silver in the 100m freestyle. He was also eighth in the 200m freestyle.
“It was a very successful World Championships,” McEvoy said during a training camp in Canberra to help prepare the Australian Swim Team for the Rio late night competition schedule.
“I learnt a lot about myself, about the sport, about other people, about my coaches and my teammates.
“It’s something that if I didn’t go through at the World Championships leading in to Rio I would be a lot less prepared. So I think I’ve lined it up to be really good for the next year to come.”
As a rookie McEvoy helped the Australian 4x100m and 4x200m relay teams reach the finals at London 2012 as a heat swimmer. This was the start of what promises to be a fantastic Olympic career.
“I was thinking ahead to Rio long before the World Championships in Kazan,” McEvoy explained.
“It’s always the end goal and you train in a four-year-cycle and every year you have a massive stepping stone to overcome – that’s the World Championships or Commonwealth Games.”
McEvoy has been swimming very fast at the Rio Protocol Camp at the Australian Institute of Sport. He is now very confident his body will have no problems with the late night finals at Rio 2016, structured to cater for American broadcaster NBC.
“I’ve adapted really quickly. I just did a three second PB in the 100 backstroke (short course) so that’s another good sign that everything’s been going well. And in the 50 freestyle I almost beat the time that I swam at the world short course in December.
“So that’s two races in one night that have been the best or close to the best that I’ve ever done and they been raced really close to midnight so I guess it’s been pretty good so far.”
The vibe on pool deck and in the dining hall has been relaxed and positive throughout the six-day camp which has been a detailed experiment to teach healthy sleep strategies, recovery, nutrition plus intense training and competition simulation.
“We’ve had a lot of meetings around a lot of different aspects of the sport. It’s just been really good to be together as a team, and it’s an extended team as well, with some swimmers that weren’t on the Dolphins team this year for the world champs.
“To go through such an unusual camp with everyone, brings everyone together. We’re already good mates with each other and we get on really well. I even think that that comradery helps us adapt quicker.”
Head Coach Jacco Verhaeren has been reinforcing with his athletes that the change in schedule is just a change in mind-set to swim heats at 1pm and finals from 10 pm to midnight. Then athletes need to speak with media, recovery sessions, eat dinner and then go to bed to try and sleep in and get a full 'nights' sleep.
“It’s 1:30 in the morning and you’re having dinner and there’s another 40 or 50 people in the dining hall so you know you’re not alone and everyone’s having a laugh like its 7:30 at night,” McEvoy said.
“We have a great mixture of athletes across this extended team. We have people in their juniors or just coming out of the junior ranks right up to people like Grant Hackett who has been on the Team since the last millennium. Which makes him sound pretty old but its true he’s been on the Team since ‘97 I think!
“So it’s good to have such a huge age gap and experience in the Team.”
With only 46 weeks until the first Olympic Games in South America, McEvoy and his teammates will be flying in their gold caps soon enough.
Andrew Reid
olympics.com.au
