The fun fact Friday edition of the Locked on Longhorns Podcast. Pat and Cami discuss the impact on the cancellations and spring football.
Cami and Patrick bring you another edition of the Locked on Longhorns podcast. What started as just a cancellation of the Texas-Texas Tech game spirals into the Big 12 tournament and more being cancelled. They discussed what impact that could have on the seniors who might have played their final games in burnt orange and white.
Patrick reads a heartbreaking post by one such senior in John Burt from his instagram.
Plus a statement released by Athletic Director Chris Del Conte. What could that mean for football team that was expected to begin spring practice on March 25th. All that and more on the fun fact Friday edition of the podcast.
For The Win spoke with Olympic swimmer Caeleb Dressel about a typical training day and his love of meatloaf.
When Olympic athletes are in the spotlight for about a month once every four years, fans only see the results of years or even a lifetime of hard work.
They don’t know about all the early mornings, the two-a-day workouts, the recovery, the injuries, the mental battle of staying focused when the ultimate goal could be years away. Those things, and so much more, contribute to an athlete standing on the podium, but in that moment, they’re all absent to viewers.
So we asked Olympic swimmer Caeleb Dressel, who’s actively in the “heat” of his training cycle, what a typical day looks like as he eyes trials in June for the 2020 Tokyo Games this summer.
“This is a tough period right now,” he explained recently to For The Win on the phone while at Toyota Team USA Day in Plano, Texas.
“It sometimes gets hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel just because itās not just this year. Itās not just 2020 [Olympics] training. It goes … all the way back to high school. It just kind of accumulates and builds upon each other, the stuff youāve learned year to year. But itās been a tough couple months just because trials are close in the grand scheme of things but also very far away.”
2020 is shaping up to be quite the year for this dude…
Dressel with a casual 49.50 100 Fly World Record and a celebration that suggests he's got a lot more to do. pic.twitter.com/f05RDdcPw1
After winning two gold medals in relays at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the 23-year-old Florida native is looking for more. A sprinter, he’s training for the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle races, along with the 100-meter butterfly.
So with less than four months until Team USA’s Olympic trials for swimming, here’s a look at Dressel’s typical training day, his favorite meal and how he balances eating just enough to have energy in the pool but avoid an unfortunate disaster.
7 a.m.: Wake up and eat some carbs
His club team, Gator Swim Club, practices at the University of Florida — Dressel swam for the Gators for four seasons from 2015 to 2018 — but after the college swimmers, so he actually gets to sleep in.
Getting ready for his first practice of the day, Dressel said he’ll eat something small like a bagel, toast or oatmeal. He’s not looking for a full meal by any means, but he also doesn’t want to go to practice on an empty stomach.
“I never eat a lot before I get in the water because I donāt want to, you know,” he said. “Anything with carbs is what I go for if it’s not a full meal.”
8 – 10 a.m.: First practice (plus a snack)
Dressel’s practices are always two hours, and after the morning one, he heads to the weight room and grabs a small snack on the way.
“I try to get something small like chocolate milk or a bar,” Dressel said. “Whatever bars they have in the weight room [at] a little fuel area.”
FRANCOIS-XAVIER MARIT/AFP/Getty Images
10:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.: Hit weight room, then breakfast/lunch (but not brunch!)
Dressel said sometimes he’s only in there until noon, and after that, it’s time for what he described as “breakfast-lunch,” which is always balanced with more carbs, some protein, fruit and vegetables.
“I still get three meals in, itās just that my breakfast is late,” he explained. “Thatās why I have a bunch of those little snacks before. But sometimes, Iāll be done with weights, and it will be a late breakfast or an early lunch.
“And then Iāll eat again before I leave for afternoon practice, and then Iāll eat after afternoon practice. Iām kind of like a horse: I just kind of eat throughout the day, so I’m not ever hungry. I donāt want to go to practice hungry.”
Sometimes there’s a nap in there too between the weight room and lunch and leaving again for afternoon practice around 4 p.m.
5 – 7 p.m.: Second practice, then dinner (maybe meatloaf)
And by the time this one is over, he’s — UNDERSTANDABLY — very tired. So he quickly heads home to “get food as fast as I can.”
Dressel said he doesn’t count calories and joked that he actually wouldn’t even know how to do that. For dinner, he said he just eats until he’s full, which is “kind of great, but if I wasnāt swimming, I think thatād be a problem.”
His favorite big meal to have at the end of the day? Meatloaf.
“I love meatloaf so much,” he said.
After dinner: Think about something other than swimming
When he’s done eating meatloaf or whatever the day’s dinner is, he said he tries to enjoy a little down time and relax. That includes playing video games or just hanging out with his roommates or fiancee.
“[I] just try to have some moment in there where Iām not thinking about anything,” Dressel said.
“Practice does take a lot out of me mentally because I have to be on it for every stroke, every turn, every breakout. Anything I do, I want to be as focused as I can, so by the time practice is done, Iām kind of physically and mentally fried. So I just want to go and not think about anything for maybe 30 minutes to an hour.”
And just like that, the day is over. He said as he starts to wind down a bit before bed, he’ll read, journal and get ready to “start the day over and try to do it better.”
10-10:30 p.m.: Time for bed
Dressel said this is his “sweet spot” for what time to crawl into bed, looking for eight or nine hours of sleep before starting the next training day all over again.
“Sometimes you lose a little bit [of motivation],” he said. “Sometimes I break down a little bit. But at the end of the day, I know what my goals are, and I know I have to stay focused. Just try to keep the same attitude. It does get tough, not just physically, but mentally.
“Sometimes I just get fried doing the same thing over and over, but that mundane-ness is what, I think, kind of makes people great — coming in, doing the same thing, keeping good habits, keeping a good attitude and doing it with good people.”
The Texas men’s swimming and diving team set a trio of meet records at the Big 12 Championships on Friday.
Texas swimming and diving teams continue to dominate.
The men’s swimming and diving team recorded three meet records at the Big 12 Championships on Friday, including the 3-meter diving event, men’s backstroke and men’s 200 freestyle relay.
3-meter diving record
Jordan Windle
553.15 points
Men’s backstroke
Alvin Jiang
44.95
Men’s 200 freestyle relay
Willenbring, Rooney, Kibler and Krueger
Finished in 1:16:48
The Longhorns are leading West Virginia with 764 points.
Two-time Olympian Sun Yang will be 36 years old when he’s eligible to compete again.
Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world.
Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, one of the country’s most successful athletes ever, was slapped with an incredible eight-year ban on Friday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. And that means not only will the 28-year-old two-time Olympian will miss the 2020 Tokyo Olympics this summer, but he’ll also be excluded from the next Summer Olympics, the 2024 Paris Games.
But, as with most doping-related cases, Sun’s situation is complicated. So here’s a breakdown of what exactly all this means.
Who is Sun Yang?
(Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports)
He’s a two-time Olympian and China’s most successful swimmer ever, and he’s also impressively versatile, competing in a variety of distance events.
By winning the 400-meter freestyle at the 2012 London Games, he became the first Chinese man to win Olympic gold. He later won gold in the 1,500-meter freestyle and broke his own world record, which currently still stands. That year, he also won silver in the 200 freestyle and bronze in the 4Ć200 freestyle relay. In Rio for the 2016 Olympics, he won gold in the 200-meter freestyle and silver in the 400.
And following a strong — and controversial, but more on that in a second — performance last summer at world championships, he has 11 world titles, which is second in swimming history behind Michael Phelps.
So why is Sun Yang banned from swimming for eight years?
Simply, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which settles international disputes in sports, found Sun “guilty of refusing to cooperate with sample collectors during a visit to his home in September 2018 that turned confrontational,” as the Associated Press reported. It was a unanimous decision with the CAS siding with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) over Sun and FINA, swimming’s international governing body, which sided with the Olympian.
In a rare hearing in open court in November, evidence was presented of how a security guard instructed by Sunās mother broke the casing around a vial of his blood, while the swimmer lit the early-hours scene with his mobile phone.
āThe athlete failed to establish that he had a compelling justification to destroy his sample collection containers and forego the doping control when, in his opinion, the collection protocol was not in compliance,ā the CAS panel of three judges agreed in a unanimous verdict.
Sun’s argument was that the testers didn’t have proper identification. But the CAS took issue with his sample being destroyed. Via the CAS’ release:
[I]t is one thing, having provided a blood sample, to question the accreditation of the testing personnel while keeping the intact samples in the possession of the testing authorities; it is quite another thing, after lengthy exchanges and warnings as to the consequences, to act in such a way that results in destroying the sample containers, thereby eliminating any chance of testing the sample at a later stage.
Has Sun Yang been suspended from swimming before?
Yes, though obviously for not nearly as long. The Chinese team briefly suspended Sun from competing for three months in 2014 after testing positive for a banned heart medication, which he said he didn’t know was banned. In 2013, he also crashed a friend’s Porsche SUV into a bus while driving without a license and was punished with seven days in “administrative detention.”
How do his competitors feel about him?
(Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
Sun is a polarizing figure in swimming, and his previous suspension from the sport led to Australian swimmer Mack Horton calling Sun a “drug cheat,” which then created a feud between their respective countries at the Rio Olympics.
Then at world championships in South Korea last summer, Horton, who finished second to Sun in the 400-meter freestyle, protested Sun and refused to acknowledge him on the podium. FINA warned Horton about protesting, which led to American Lily King, who’s been vocal about her anti-doping stance, to say, via NBC Sports:
āFINA has currently done more to reprimand Mack Horton than they have done to reprimand Sun Yang.”
Sun also won the 200 freestyle after the original winner was disqualified, and Britainās Duncan Scott, who then finished in a tie for third, also staged a protest. Afterward, Sun confronted Scott about it:
āIt was really unlike anything I had participated in before,ā 12-time Olympic medalist Natalie Coughlin said.
Almost nothing about the International Swimming League is typical for the sport.
Neon blue, pink and purple lights flash around an otherwise dark natatorium, backlit by a giant screen behind the blocks that announces the next event, complements swimmer introductions or adds an electric ambiance. It looks more like an EDM concert than a swim meet, especially considering thereās a DJ on deck. Itās clearly a show — the opposite of all-day competitions that can have ample and subdued down time with several minutes between events.
Swimmer introductions are delivered with a flair more comparable to WWE, and the athletes enter the pool deck together as teammates racing for points first, rather than individuals hoping to set a personal best time. Three dozen races are packed into two-hour sessions on back-to-back days — a typical meet can hit double-digit hours across several days — and when swimmers arenāt in the water, theyāre engaging with fans. Between their own events, some of the best swimmers on the planet lead the crowd through cheers and chants, take photos and toss autographed swim caps up to the stands. The smaller the venue, the more intimate the interaction between the two groups is.
(ISL via LaPresse)
At the match at the University of Maryland, fans of the āhomeā team, the DC Trident, brought prop tridents to the pool, as the athletes had been doing all season, team general manager and four-time Olympic medalist Kaitlin Sandeno recalled. She loved that the tridents were catching on.
The ISL’s seven-match inaugural season opened in October and ends with the league final Friday and Saturday at a popup pool at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. The opening season was designed to show how swimming can be a flashy and entertaining spectator sport, with the help of some serious star power. And although itās still a young start-up, those involved hope the ISL can help grow swimmingās fan base beyond Olympic years and create a permanent audience — while also offering swimmers a paycheck.
āThe lights, the smoke, the big TVs — itās a lot of fun for me because thatās the part of swimming I love, not just the racing but the whole theatrics of it. I absolutely love it,ā said Lilly King, a 22-year-old breaststroker who won two gold medals at the 2016 Rio Olympics and caught the worldās attention when she trash talked and wagged her finger at a rival swimmer. She’ll compete for the Cali Condors in Vegas.
āIt was really unlike anything I had participated in before,ā said Natalie Coughlin, a member of the DC Trident whose 12 Olympic medals tie the record for most won by an American woman across all sports.
The rosters of the eight teams feature more than 100 Olympians with swimmers who combined for 41 gold medals at the Rio Games, including Americans Katie Ledecky, Nathan Adrian and Caeleb Dressel. The first season featured approximately 75 percent of reigning Olympic and world champions, according to the league.
(Three swimmers, including Hungaryās Katinka HosszĆŗ, did sue FINA, swimmingās global governing body, after it tried to prevent swimmers from joining the new league. FINA threatened their Olympic eligibility if they participated in unsanctioned events, like ISL matches, and the suit argued the governing body had an illegal monopoly on international competition. Ultimately, FINA relented and allowed swimmers to compete in independent events without punishment.)
The team-oriented ISL is unlike the more traditional atmospheres of the Toyota U.S. Open earlier this month, world championships or even the Olympics. And thatās the point.
Competing in an ISL event feels like a college dual meet, ājust ramped up a little bit with the lights show and a DJ and really, really fast swimming,ā said Dressel, a 23-year-old sprinter who won eight medals (six gold) and broke Michael Phelpsā 10-year-old 100-meter butterfly world record at the world championships in July. Based on how the league was pitched, the Cali Condors swimmer said the first season was exactly what he expected.
(ISL via LaPresse)
āIāve been to a lot of swim meets in my life, and I can honestly say Iāve never been to one like this before,ā Sandeno said. āIt was just fast-paced, go-go-go action, excitement, entertainment ā¦
āThe production value of this is just next-level. Itās artistic but still competitive, and itās just electrifying. I think the timeline of a two-hour swim meet shows you the pace of it is explosive. Itās one exciting race after the other, and thereās no real lull, which you come across a lot in your typical swim meets.ā
The man (and money) behind the dream
Swimming is consistently one of the most popular Olympic sports, but just as that popularity peaks for a few weeks every four years, it plummets again for the other three years and 11 months. ISL founder Konstantin Grigorishin hopes to change that.
The Ukranian energy mogul, who had a net worth of $1.1 billion in 2015, according to Forbes, is bankrolling the league and has lofty and perhaps unrealistic goals for it. He said building the sportās international audience is about giving swimmers a new platform through which to compete and earn a living and merging it with music and art as a form of entertainment. Expanding the audience could help swimmers make āreal money,ā he said.
āThey can generate much more money than even they can imagine now,ā Grigorishin said.
āThey can generate more money than current, very successful American leagues potentially. But itās a wait, not a very long wait, but theyāll have to spend some effort and time. But eventually, they can generate more money than the NBA or NFL. Maybe itās really weird to hear this. You think that I’m mad, but we will see.ā
The 2019 budget was $25 million with more than $4 million allocated for prize money — awarded equally for men and women — and profits also split 50-50 between the ISL and swimmers, according to the league. Grigorishin plans to invest more for the second season, as the league is expected to expand to 10 clubs with 27 matches between September 2020 and May 2021.
Currently, the four U.S. teams are the DC Trident, Cali Condors (San Francisco), LA Current and NY Breakers, while the four European teams are the London Roar, Energy Standard (Turkey), Aqua Centurions (Italy) and the Budapest-based Iron. Each team has a roster of up to 32 swimmers.
This season matches were held in Indianapolis, Naples, Texas, Budapest, Maryland and London. Four teams competed in each match (meaning each team appeared in three over the course of the season), and then two teams from each continent advance to this weekendās championship final.
The LA Current, Cali Condors, Energy Standard and London Roar are the four teams competing to be the ISLās first champions.
The Energy Standard club in London. (Fabio Ferrari /LaPresse via AP Images)
āThe goal of this league is to be on TV and be able to create personalities where people can follow [swimmers] all the time, versus seeing them maybe once a year at world championships or once every four years if theyāre watching the Olympics,ā said Jason Lezak, a four-time Olympian with seven medals who serves as the general manager for the Cali Condors.
Though the league couldnāt coordinate āhomeā meets for most of its U.S.-based teams this season, it plans to in the future.
āAnd then you get into the local [aspect],ā Lezak continued. āThis is your local team, this is who youāre cheering for, and just like any other team, when a new player comes in, thatās your favorite player, thatās your favorite swimmer, and itās going to be interesting as this league grows and expands.ā
āEverybody is ISLingā
Adrian, a 31-year-old three-time Olympian with eight medals, and Dressel were among those who said they didnāt need any convincing to participate in a start-up league because it complements their training schedule ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
āI want it to be successful,ā said Coughlin, the 37-year-old three-time Olympian who came out of her unofficial retirement to compete in the first season, thanks to a little push from Sandeno. āI owe so much to swimming, and I like to give back.ā
King described joining as āa pretty easy decisionā because the league offered a new chance to help grow the sport while racing against some of the best swimmers in the world less than a year out from the Olympics. Comparing times and placing against international competition is a āgood benchmarkā for Tokyo, she said.
And as more stars around the world joined the league for the inaugural season, it became a verb, as in āEverybody is ISLing,ā Sandeno said.
However, the league has a strict anti-doping policy and prohibits anyone previously disqualified for doping from being on a roster.
āIt was a huge movement within the swim community as a whole,ā said Dressel, who is in the hunt for the ISL season MVP. āItās an exciting league. Itās a new opportunity to exploit ourselves and maximize our potential, and itās really fun, which is a huge plus.ā
The extra cash part is critical, especially for the swimmers without monster sponsorship deals.
(Alfredo Falcone/LaPresse for ISL)
LA Current coach David Marsh — who was the womenās head coach for the 2016 Olympics and coached at Auburn from 1990 to 2007 — estimated it costs at least $30,000 annually for a swimmer train at an elite level āwithout compromise.ā
So in the ISL this year, swimmers signed two contracts: One with the league for prize money and one with their respective teams for salaries. Each team had a 2019 salary cap of $25,000 per team, which Sandeno anticipates will increase with the new budget next season.
ā[We] have a base salary, but whatās really paying the bills is how you place,ā King said. āSo if youāre swimming well, itās definitely a supplement to our current income. The swimmers who donāt have huge endorsement deals or a suit deal are probably going to have to be working another job to have some other means of being supported.ā
King is referring to the prize money, which is equal for menās and womenās events.
Swimmers earn points for themselves and their teams based on finish — with first place getting nine and relays earning double — and prize money is correlated with points. For the best of the best, there is additional $5,000 bonus for the one MVP in each match.
Take Dressel, a versatile sprinter and the only swimmer to win multiple match MVP awards so far. At the ISLās match at Maryland in November, he won all five of his individual events — including breaking the American record in the 50-meter butterfly — and helped his team win two relays and finish third in another. He earned 61.5 total points and $19,700 in prize money, plus the MVP bonus.
Dressel was also the MVP in Naples in October, and should he win his third match MVP award in Vegas, heāll earn a $10,000 bonus.
āAs [the ISL] progresses, there will be more money, and they [will] have that opportunity to make a living out of this,ā Lezak said.
āEven if itās not a living like weāre used to seeing in other professional sports, hopefully it can grow to that one day. But at least they can do this as their job and focus on swimming, and that way, theyāre going to be able to reach their highest potential and not have to sacrifice other things.ā
‘An absolute blast’
To build a larger audience beyond the swimming world and Olympics fans, the league redesigned the competition, in addition to adding theatrics. Unlike typical meets that can last all day with several minutes between events sometimes, the ISL is fast-paced with an emphasis on earning points for your team versus being primarily focused on individual times.
āThis is like what I think a lot of us see as the possibility for swimmingās future,ā Adrian said. āThis is swimmingās attempt at capturing that team fight and the team game of the sport. ā¦
āSwimming with a team is an absolute blast, and I think that becomes really apparent as you watch the meets and the reactions and emotions.ā
There are 37 events shoved into two-hour sessions across two days, and to keep the pace up, no event is longer than 400 meters. Additionally, they compete in a 25-meter pool, rather than 50 meters like at the Olympics, which also makes the times faster.
And then there are the skins races: 50-meter freestyle events in back-to-back-to-back elimination rounds on three-minute intervals, starting with eight swimmers and shrinking to four and down to the final two swimming off for the win.
āThe skin races were insane!ā Sandeno said.
āThe 50 free skin is the most exciting thing I’ve ever witnessed. And that being the conclusion [of individual events] on the final day I just think is the bow on top. People leave the meet like, āWow!ā And the skins determined a lot of the placing. It was intense just seeing people explode.ā
Is a start-up swimming league sustainable?
Thereās clearly an audience for a professional swimming league like this, but, as expected for a start-up, itās a particularly small one.
Although the ISL says itās averaging 88 percent capacity this season, the crowds arenāt substantial compared with other professional sports and are relative to the size of the venue. The matches in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. and Dallas sold out with 1,000 fans each day, with tickets ranging from $20 to $60. The Naples match was near-capacity with 1,600 fans, and Budapest had more than 2,000 people in attendance each day, according to the league. Single-session tickets for the Las Vegas final start at $42.
And if fans arenāt watching in person, there are 10 international broadcasting partners offering live and tape-delayed matches. In North America, ESPN3 and CBC stream the matches, and theyāre available in Europe and Asia through Eurosport. The BBC also provided coverage of the London match. The ISL declined to share viewership data from the season.
Grigorishin said that ahead of the first season, it was particularly challenging to sell a product that didnāt exist. Heās prepared to subsidize the league again for next season, but his goal is to sell enough in media rights and corporate sponsorship to ultimately break even. He also said he already has interest from potential sponsors for next season, although he would not reveal them.
As the league slowly grows, Lezak said he hopes it will become easier to attract sponsors (there were none this year). Plus, the 2020 season, set to begin in September, should be able to piggyback off the Olympics, when the sportās popularity briefly peaks again.
If the ISL takes off, Sandeno speculated about some swimmers possibly forgoing college if they could make a living immediately simply by competing.
āIf it goes the way theyāre planning, it could potentially completely restructure the sport,ā King said.
āItās definitely a risk, but itās been well done and they have a vision for it and a plan for whatās going to happen in the future. So if you’re a gazillionaire and want to invest in Olympic athletes, Iām all down for that.ā
