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Cameron McEvoy: Australia's best male swimmer will NOT fly to the Paris Olympics with the rest of the team - here's the unusual reason why

3 months ago 26

Freestyle trailblazer Cameron McEvoy will not be flying out to France with the rest of the Australian Olympic team this week - and there's a special reason why.

McEvoy booked his berth for the looming Games by winning the 50m freestyle at Australia's Olympic selection trials in Brisbane.

The 30-year-old will become the first Australian man to swim at four Olympics when he gets into the pool in Paris.


MvcEvoy achieved the feat after stepping away from swimming before returning with a revolutionary training regime.

Instead of endless pool work, McEvoy does rock climbing and calisthenics while tinkering on techniques he's keeping close to his chest... for now.

Cameron McEvoy (pictured) will not be flying out to France with the rest of the Australian Olympic team this week because it will interrupt his unique training program

McEvoy has been granted special permission to remain in Brisbane until July while the rest of his Dolphins teammates are in Paris

McEvoy has a secret personalised training program and he's been given permission to remain in Brisbane and finish it while the rest of the Dolphins begin their own training camp in France.

'They felt the disruption to his training off the back of trials, with travel and adaptation with jet lag, would potentially slow him down and be a risk for them,' Dolphins head coach Rohan Taylor told the Sydney Morning Herald.

'He needs the standardised equipment like the KPASS block (Kistler force-instrumented starting block) at the QAS to measure and really help him progress through his stages of preparation.

'It was better for him to stay and continue his prep because he's training so specifically and uses such specific stuff, like the indoor pool, the cameras, the blocks and the resources the QAS have. He trains uniquely this way and no one else really does … so I felt like I was happy to support that.

'Cam and his coach Tim [Lane] will come over on July 7.'

McEvoy says he plans to release his training secrets to the world - but not until after the Olympics.

'Eighteen months ago, my goal was just come back, give this new training approach a go and see what happens,' he said after clocking 21.35 seconds to win on Wednesday night.

'And if I can maybe go under 22 (seconds) again, I'd be over the moon with that.

The talented 30-year-old will become the first Australian man to swim at four Olympics

'What I've done so far has just obliterated any expectations I had.

'What I'm most excited to try to get this (Olympics) done and then just compile what I have learnt and just push it out there into the public.

'I know there's a tremendous amount of swimmers who have been in my position, currently are in my position, who would want to learn from that, a lot of coaches want to learn from that.

'It can provide a lot of good to a lot of athletes who love the sport but they're not quite on the right path in terms of the the type of training and the philosophy.'

McEvoy offered a partial glimpse: he mixes funky strength training outside of the pool with technical minutiae in the water.

'The nature of my training is literally replicating race pace, race environments, weekly, year-round,' he said.

'I have done probably close to 1000 dive-suited, race replications, since 18 months ago ... so by the time I get up and race, it's very second nature.

'I can try to switch off that cognitive side of my mind and just let everything flow.'

An example is the starting dive, encompassing the time it takes to reach the 15m mark.

'My best prior to coming back to this was 5.5 seconds, now it's 5.1,' he said.

'So literally from a jump, a couple of underwater kicks and four strokes, I'm already almost half a second quicker, which is insane in a 50 freestyle.

'The rest of it was just strength within the stroke - not brute strength ... just trying to load that up with as much weight as I can without destroying that technique.

'We have gone down a lot of rabbit holes in that sense and we have probably uncovered quite a few novel things for the sport which, again, we have kept close to ourselves.

'But we're keen to put it out there post-Paris.'

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