USA TODAY International Edition
Anderson set to go distance
After London loss, swimmer has new strategy for Rio
Amid daunting 7,000- meter practices and countless hours of underwater solitude, marathon swimmer Haley Anderson admits her mind occasionally wanders.
She is the only female American swimmer qualified for the 10,000- meter open- water event at the Rio Olympics. The 24- yearold often focuses on a familiar figure at the bottom of lane seven at the University of Southern California pool.
“There’s this splotch that, over the last six years I’ve been training there, has come to look like a guy wearing sunglasses, so that’s what I stare at every single day,” said Anderson, who swam for the Trojans for four years ( 2010- 13). “Some days, it does make me wish I was relaxing instead of putting in all this hard work. But if it wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t be worth it.”
The lingering, bitter taste from her first Olympic appearance in the 2012 London Games fuels her. In a nearly two- hour race, she lost to Hungary’s Éva Risztov by four- tenths of a second and settled for the silver medal.
But with less than two months to Rio, she’s a smarter swimmer compared with four years ago, complete with a restructured training strategy, more international experience and tunnel vision toward an Olympic gold.
Since transitioning from a collegiate to a professional athlete, Anderson diversified her preparation, adding Pilates, strength and mental training and threeweek intervals of altitude practices at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. With a more holistic approach, she matured and is no longer the underdog she was in London, says Catherine Vogt, Team USA’s open- water coach and an assistant at USC.
She secured her second Olympic appearance by finishing ninth in the 10K in the FINA World Championships last summer in Kazan, Russia. She was also the 2015 and 2013 world champion in the 5,000- meter race, which is not an Olympic event.
“A lot of open- water swimming comes down to chance and where you are in the pack,” said Bryce Elser, the U. S. national team open- water program director. “If the lead pack breaks up and you’re on the wrong side of that split, that can hurt you. But if you’re in the top 10, that means you’re in the hunt for the podium, which is what we’re looking for. So it’s a huge confidence booster.”
Leading up to Rio, Vogt said the emphasis would be on the mental preparation needed to survive unpredictable weather and water conditions at Fort Copacabana.
“You have to be smart, you have to be able to manage stress ( and) you have to be able to change your speeds,” she said. “A lot of it is like a chess game — it’s a mental match — and that’s the excitement of it. Haley is really tough, and I think that’s what makes her so good on the world level.”
Besides competing in the FINA/ HOSA 10KM Marathon Swimming World Cup in Hungary on June 18, Anderson will take a stab at a few pool events at the Olympic team trials, which start June 26 in Omaha.
She’ll likely race in the 400and 800- meter freestyle, the 200 butterfly and the 400 individual medley, Vogt said. If she finishes in the top two in at least one event, she’ll be the first U. S. athlete to qualify for the pool and the open water.
While she embraces the challenge, Anderson’s priority remains the 10K.
Despite growing concerns about Rio’s water quality and safety, she trusts USA Swimming to inform her if she’s at risk. She’s open to taking precautionary antibiotics or probiotics but said not competing never crossed her mind, especially after she swam in Copacabana’s water in January and the worst thing that happened was getting stung by a jellyfish.
“I swear, it’s only me that gets stung,” Anderson said jokingly. “Every time we go somewhere, I’m always the first person or the only person to get stung, and it always tends to be a jellyfish.”