The strangest of months then with swimmers locked out of their pools, the British Championships cancelled and the Olympics pushed back a year. Not the expected topics of discussion, but with the Arena league having just reached its conclusion, Bob, Katie and Steve are joined by Emma Collings-Barnes, director of swimming for league champions Mount Kelly, to discuss their win in Cardiff and what she has her swimmers doing while on a hiatus from training. We also cast an eye over some notable swims at the Edinburgh International meet, including a sparkling 200 free from Tom Dean.
“I got in and the pain in my hands was like nothing I had ever experienced, it was like they had exploded from the inside out but my skin was keeping the explosion in.” That’s the feeling of getting in to water at zero degrees Celsius according to ice swimmer Caroline Saxon.
There have been plenty of swims posted by Britain’s swimmers so far in 2020, across several meets. Plenty of early season promise to be dissected by Steve, Bob and Katie, who are also joined for a chat by Hannah Miley.
The end of 2019 saw an epic final of the International Swim League won by the Energy Standard club. As the podcast returns for 2020, we welcome the first special guest of the year as Katie and Steve chat to Energy head coach James Gibson.
Pre-Olympic year often has the sense of a dress rehearsal as heads are turned towards the Games looming inexorably on the horizon. But that also means as well as medals to be won there are markers to be laid down, challenges to be made and lessons to be learnt. Amongst it all there was some fantastic swimming from Britain’s swimmers, making the job of picking out the leading lights anything but straightforward. But here are the Pullbuoy swimmers for 2019.
