swimming

From 2:19 200 IM to the Olympics: Ellen Walshe

Today I’m joined by the coach of Templeogue Swim Club Brian Sweeney. We discuss the qualification of Ellen Walshe to the Olympics at the 11th hour. We go all the way back to her beginning in the club, and further than that to the dream passed down from one coach to another to coach an Olympian.

Jeremy Kipp's Kick, Brazilian Shenanigans and Athlete Expression

This week with Joel and Erik we get into the article about Jeremy Kipp purportedly kicking a water bottle into a USC Swimmer. We follow that with the wild Brazilian Olympic 4x100 relay selection, before using this article as a jumping off for touching on the red hot third rail of sports and politics.

Signe Bro

Signe Bro is a swimmer who has made an Olympic qualifying standard for Denmark and hopes to compete in Tokyo 2021.

We talk about the role her parents have played for her over her career as well as some of the ways she has learned to handle with nerves at big meets. We also talk about how she's learned to deal with more people giving her opinions on what she should do as she rises in the ranks, and pro swimming in the ISL:

NCAA One Event, Transferring to D3 and Fike's 200 PB

This week on the Swim Brief I’m joined by Joel and Erik to react to one event of the Women’s NCAA Division 1 Championship.

We then turn to the story of a swimmer transferring from D1 Arkansas to D3 Hendrix College, before giving our thoughts on James Fike crushing personal bests in his late 30s.

Matt Crispino

This week on the podcast I am joined by the Head Coach of Men's Swimming and Diving at Princeton University Matt Crispino. We talk about his time both as a swimmer and a coach at William and Mary, the fight to bring that program back, and his decision to step into a leadership position at Princeton.

We also discuss coaching trees and stick around for the end where I unveil my most devious lightning round yet.

Swimming Agent Cejih Yung

As promised last week, here’s the podcast recorded with swimming agent and all around sport enthusiast Cejih Yung.

I think Cejih has a clear sense of what swimming is as a business, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. For the sport to thrive, the value of what we’re doing needs to be connected to those who can support it, and Cejih has done just that for a group of top level professional swimmers in the US.


Joel Shinofield

Today the long awaited and teased podcast with the Managing Director of Sport Development for USA Swimming, Joel Shinofield. We trace Joel’s history in the sport, back to his earliest days teaching and coaching up to the present day.

We get into what motivated some of the twists and turns in his career, before finally pivoting to a conversation of his current role and what he’s trying to accomplish right now. Joel even turns the tables on me at the last minute. Enjoy:


Cultural Knowledge, Richard Foster and More

Today I'm joined by Sarah Ehekircher and for the first time, Dia Rianda. We talk through how cultural knowledge, often damaging, is handed down from coach to coach, and work through a few examples we have seen.

Later on, Dia helps us understand the latest news about Richard Foster, and I rant a bit about the piece I wrote on Dick Shoulberg yesterday:

Chris, Sarah and Trever

Today I return with Trever Gray and Sarah Ehekircher, to follow up on our podcast of last week. If you want to read more from Trever go here. If you want to hear more from Sarah her blog is here and she’s active on twitter.

Both Trever and Sarah have new research to bring to the fray this week. We turn from there to a discussion of Steve Lochte and Swimswam beginning to report on interim Safe Sport suspensions. Finally. we discuss Steve Penny, the former head of USA Gymnastics, getting arrested this past week and I go on an extended rant about Tom Brokaw. Enjoy.




Ryan Wochomurka

Today a long awaited chat with the University of Houston head coach Ryan Wochomurka

Ryan is building something in Houston after being a part of the incredible development of the University of Louisville. We talk about his journey in coaching to get to this point, as well as the spirit that makes Houston such an exciting place to live and work.

From there we look to the future to see what he and his team are doing to, in their words, "elevate" the program, and the project we're working to make that a reality. Enjoy. 

Chris, Sarah and Eva: The Senate Hearings

A few weeks back I teamed up for a podcast with Sarah Ehekircher and Eva Rodansky. This time, we got to talking about the Senate hearings with Olympic sports leaders.

Eva was there and a part of some pretty compelling events outside of the hearing. Sarah watched from home. We talk about whether there is true progress and momentum.

Just one note: this was recorded last Friday, and there is a discussion about the independence of Safe Sport vis-a-vis banning coaches that USA Swimming failed to ban. Later on in the day, Sean Hutchison was banned, which is an interesting test case for this. Although, Sean had already been very prominently exposed and USA Swimming has already admitted some wrongdoing in the way they handled the investigation, specifically with the termination of Susan Woessner.

Also we talked a bit about a rumor that Hutchison had fled the country. News reports quote his lawyers as saying he is still stateside.