USA TODAY International Edition
New Olympic coaching command: Go jump in a lake
Swimmers in Indiana are having to get creative as coronavirus shutdowns close pools
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Chlorine won’t burn her eyes, and there is no danger of brushing into a lane marker or smashing her hand while pushing off a wall.
This is swimming as Lilly King never envisioned. With turtles in the water and moss at the bottom. With temperatures so cold she wears a wetsuit.
What else are you going to do when you’re training for the Olympics and a pandemic shuts all the pools? Go jump in the lake.
“Definitely never thought I would be swimming open water, coming out and training in the pond,” King said. “But it’s kind of been a nice little change here.”
King, 23, is one of the world’s most prominent swimmers. She owns two Olympic and 11 world gold medals, and eight NCAA titles. She has set 16 American records and holds world records in the 50- and 100- meter breaststrokes.
Yet she was left scrambling when the state went into lockdown. There is little respite for aspiring Olympians. Even if the Tokyo Olympics are now set for 2021.
“You usually have to wait for years for the Olympics anyway,” King said. “So what’s another year?”
That’s how she and others in Indiana University’s pro training group find themselves here twice a week, in a pond on the grounds of a south Bloomington subdivision. There are buoys about 100 yards apart, and the pros swim back and forth, replicating pool workouts as much as possible. No one knows how fast they are because no one knows the exact distance.
The connection to the pond was made through Bloomington South High School coach Kandis Looze, wife of Indiana coach Ray Looze.
Swimmers said some stress was removed by the announcement that the Tokyo Olympics were postponed to July 23- Aug. 8, 2021. The trials meet to select the U. S. team will be in June 2021. USA
Swimming canceled its summer championship but might organize regional meets before 2020 ends.
A summer without a culminating championship has been “weird but good,” King said.
“I’m going to be honest. It’s been kind of nice. Haven’t exactly had a break since I’ve been 8 years old. So it’s kind of nice to just kind of step back for a little bit and just swim for the sake of swimming and not necessarily for the sake of performing in a meet.”
In case there were doubts, King was in this only to be queen of the sport.
“Yeah, if you don’t love it, you’re certainly not doing it now, swimming in a pond,” said Cody Miller, 28, a breaststroker who won Olympic bronze and gold medals in 2016. “But anything is better than nothing.”
The pond has not been the pros’ only training base.
King swam at a pool in her hometown of Evansville until kicked out. She has traveled to an undisclosed Indianapolis residence to use a private, 10- foot- wide, 25- yard pool. “Batman’s Lair” is what Miller calls it.
The swimmers have lugged weights to a park for dryland training and done CrossFit workouts. Miller said they are close friends and keep each other motivated.
“Not that I didn’t respect these people’s hard work or anything beforehand. But it gave me such a newfound respect for the people I’m around every day, truly,” said Annie Lazor, 25, a 2018 world champion who won three gold medals at the 2019 Pan American Games. “They’re willing to do whatever they can to get better and be in the water during this time.”
Ray Looze suggested swimmers in other countries have had fewer interruptions than those in the U. S., where nearly 100,000 deaths have been attributed to COVID- 19. He said the pros have shown character and perseverance.
“It’s really the Olympic spirit,” he said. “Regardless of how they might do a year from now, they’ve already shown me that they’re champions.”