Capital exit proves a winner
A switch from Wellington to Auckland has been ‘a revelation’ for Olympics medal contender Lewis Clareburt.
That’s the view of Swimming New Zealand’s Olympic programme lead Gary Francis, after a couple of taxing weeks in the pool by the medley specialist.
Clareburt moved from the capital late last year - and ended his long-time pairing with coach Gary Hollywood - after constant battles over consistent access to lanes for training at the Wellington City Council-run – and community facility – Wellington Regional Aquatic Centre.
It was reported by Stuff in November that restrictions on filming at the venue was the “final straw”.
Since then, Clareburt won gold at the world championships in Doha in February in the 400m Individual Medley, and is set to contest that event and two others at the 2024 Paris Olympics starting in late July.
“It's been a revelation really,” Francis said of Clareburt’s move to join the Club 37 programme in Auckland.
“He's gone from being a pretty fragile, upset young man. He's real bubbly, he's always glass half-full, the other swimmers love being in his presence.
“And he was getting quite worn down by the politics of what was happening around the Wellington pool, the stop-start of training - all kinds of things that he'd managed to cope with for about four or five years. And believe me, it wasn't for the want of trying to get a better environment for him, but it just wasn't happening.
“Lewis was prepared to stay in Wellington and obviously has a close relationship with Gary [Hollywood] ... while he felt it was the best thing to stay with Gary, he tried his hardest, but as soon as he felt he couldn't do it any more, he hasn't looked back.”
Clareburt has a more tempered approach to his switch of cities and training.
“It's been good - it's different for sure, to be away from family,” he said this week.
“I've got a good group to train with in a high-performance environment - I think it's been a good shift, for my performance moving forward. I've been able to be myself - and I think he's [Francis] seen that from pool-side quite often - and do my job every day.”
The 24-year-old would love it if his girlfriend could also make the move, but acknowledges she has a good job in Wellington that makes it hard to leave.
Clareburt also spent time in the United States late last year and trained with Michael Phelps’ former coach Bob Bowman at Arizona State University, and with many of his major rivals for 400 IM gold in Paris - French star Leon Marchand, and the US duo of Chase Kalisz and Jay Litherland.
“A month overseas with Bob Bowman was a nice bonus and it gave him a month away from everyone asking what was going on,” Francis said.
“Training has changed a little bit - Mitch Nairn, his new coach, demands that Lewis swims fast every day, every day in training - and Lewis responds to that really well.
“If you go to work in the morning and are very happy to get there and looking forward to what you do; one, you're very rare, and two, when you're loving it and enjoying it and you're happy, you perform better.
“Right now, he's very happy. I think he's enjoying being challenged - he's challenged every day - and he's got a good group of training partners around.
“It's everything he didn't have, apart from the coach, in Wellington.”
Clareburt achieved an Olympic qualifying time in the 200 IM at the national championships in Hawke’s Bay earlier this month, then competed the following week at the Australian Open champs on the Gold Coast.
He finished second in the 400 IM to Japan’s Daiya Seto, being just .42s behind the winner in a time of four minutes 10.86 seconds. Clareburt’s best time for the event is 4:08.70.
“The day I arrived in Australia, I came down with a cold which ruined my sinuses,” Clareburt said.
“I got there and thought I probably wouldn't race, but I got a little better and by Friday I did the 200 IM and did alright, so did the 400 IM as well on the Saturday and actually went alright and surprised myself a bit.
“Considering a big week of racing prior and then the little niggle with the cold, I was stoked to walk away with that. I wanted to race as the depth of the competition there is huge.”
Francis said while Clareburt is also set to contest the 200 IM and 200m butterfly in Paris, the 400 IM takes absolute precedence.
“The work he's been doing since his move from Wellington - he's been working a lot on speed, but really based around 400 speed.
“It’s the only event he's really training for. The 200 IM, the 200 fly, they just form part of the training preparation for the 400 IM.
“He's so exceptional that he's able to swim the others at a high level.”
Clareburt said the 400m medley is a hard race to get perfect every time.
“I swam it so differently to what I would usually do in Aussie last week - it was pretty crazy. I went very slow on my backstroke, and I went outrageously fast on my freestyle. If I can swim the same freestyle, but fix my backstroke to what it was, then I'm well and truly there.
“I just need to put together the perfect race and I'll be away laughing - but it's putting together that perfect race which is the difficult thing.”