Swimmers' Training for 2021 Olympics Had to Be Altered Amid Pandemic

Sports Illustrated's Pat Forde noted in a story, "This Summer: Waterless World," that U.S. swimmers have had to resort to some unusual methods to train for 2021 Olympics. Meanwhile, Cal and U.S. Olympic men's swimming coach David Durden had the task of outlining a new training schedule for the male athletes hoping to be on the American swimming team.

Forde reports that most pools have been shut down during the pandemic, forcing athletes to find "a patchwork of solutions" to training. He sites the case of 2016 Olympian Kelsey Dahlia, who is training in her backyard in the "nine-foot by 12-foot ipool working on her butterfly while restrained by these ropes."

Forde also includes the case of Lily King, a two time Olympic gold medalist and world record holder, who has been training in a pond. He notes several other swimmers finding ways to train.

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Durden is in charge of the U.S. men's Olympic swimming team, and about 4:40 into the May 27 video below he discusses his response to the announcement of the postponement of the 2020 Olympics.

"I can remember sitting here in this office in my house sending out a text to our guys that were still in the water training. Chancellor [Carol] Christ did a phenomenal job, [athletic director] Jim Knowlton did a phenomenal job of carving out some opportunities for our athletes to still prepare for the U.S. Olympic Trials that were scheduled for the middle of June, at the end of March amid a lot of backlash. We were being safe and careful with our guys, but Chancellor Christ and Jim Knowlton just did a fantastic job of looking after our student athletes, making sure they still had access to water and training in preparation for the Olympic Games."

Shortly before the official announcement that the Games would be postponed, Durden told his swimmers to pause their training because it appeared to him that the Olympic would not be held in 2020 as scheduled.

When the announcement finally did come, Durden's first reaction was relief in knowing what the situation was. Then he could turn his attention to being the 2021 U.S. Olympic coach.

"Within the next 24 hours it was may job to plan out what the next 14 months, 15 months for our athletes aspiring to be on the Olympic podium and to represent their country at the Olympic Games. And I think we have a good plan in place and we're executing it right now and moving forward with that right now in this pandemic, and our guys have been doing really good job of that."

Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

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