The SwimSwam Podcast

We sat down with Emily Escobedo , the breaststroking machine that has been on fire this past year. Escobedo had a successful season in the ISL Budapest Bubble, helping a rebuilt New York Breakers team to a semi-final appearance . Less than a month after that, Escobedo suited up in practice and came within .2 of a lifetime best in the 200-yard breaststroke . But she wasn't done there. At the Januar...

Matt Biondi , an 11-time Olympic medalist, details his progress to further athletes’ rights as the manager of the International Swimmers’ Alliance. The Alliance, an association of the world’s top 120 elite swimmers, is ready to officially get down to business after 20 months of development. For Matt, a three-time Olympian, this journey has been far, far longer. The Olympic icon has been a pioneer...

We sat down with 2 of SwimSwam's Co-Founders, Braden Keith and Mel Stewart , to discuss the recent news that the 2021 US Olympic Trials will now be 2 meets . We discuss whether this was the right decision, what led to this choice behind the scenes, and if there may be a better solution out there. Braden and Mel also dive into what this means for Olympic Trials moving forward, with the potential fo...

We sat down with David Curtiss , the 18-year-old national team member that logged a PR in the 50m free at the Richmond Pro Swim. Curtiss revealed that he had only been in the water for 2 1/2 weeks before the Pro Swim, being forced out of the pool for a month prior due to COVID restrictions. Curtiss explains that he's focused a lot on power and strength work outside of the pool, which he's been abl...

We sat down with Grant Shoults, the NCAA All-American who recently took to twitter to give a personal update . After recovering from shoulder surgery a year ago, Shoults was back in the pool training toward the beginning of quarantine. However, he started having shoulder pain and realized he would need a 2nd surgery on his other shoulder. We go into the details of how it went and what recovery loo...

SwimSmart ( https://www.swimsmarttoday.com ) co-founders Karl Hamouche and Mike Peterson drop-in on the SwimSwam Podcast explaining how they've flexed their entrepreneurial muscle, building one of the fastest growing companies in our sport.   Karl Hamouche is the founder of Swim Smart and co-inventor of the Squeezline. He moved to Iowa from Lebanon when he was 12 years old, joined the local swim t...

We sat down with NCAA-champion Austin Surhoff, who turned some heads by racking up 2 lifetime bests at the Richmond Pro Swim. Surhoff went 22.5 in the 50 free and 49.6 in the 100 free , very solid times that put him on the list for potentially finaling at Olympic Trials. As someone who was always a grinder in practice but didn't necessarily love it, Surhoff takes us through the process that has he...

We sat down with British music producer and activist Ed Accura , who recently announced a sequel to his wave-making documentary “A Film Called Blacks Can’t Swim" , scheduled for release in May 2021. The new film, titled “Blacks Can’t Swim The Sequel,” will feature scripted scenes combined with real interview footage of 14-25 year olds from the Black community talking about why their generation doe...

We sat down with Olympic champion and swim-vlogger Cody Miller after the breaststroke had a strong showing at the Pro Swim in San Antonio. My favorite part about Cody is his vulnerability; his honesty. We get into the nitty-gritty of being a new father, training through a pandemic, and being someone people look to for hope and excitement in a time of uncertainty. Cody shares that through these ups...

If you didn't see our first talk with Matthew Marquardt, you can revisit that conversation here , when he was in the middle of cycling across the United States. Marquardt recently finished his trek, 3 days ahead of schedule, and was kind enough to sit down with us and break down what he gained from the ride. Matthew goes into details of where the hardest struggles came, how his diet changed, and b...

We sat down with ISL star Siobhan Haughey . Haughey, who went undefeated in the 200 free in season 2 of the ISL, is currently in Hong Kong preparing for the 2021 Olympic Games. She takes us through what has been clicking for her in training and racing this past year as well as how establishing daily routines in ISL was key for her success. Click here to listen and subscribe on Spotify Click here t...

Gary Hall Sr. is swimming royalty, a 3-time Olympian, U.S. Olympic Team Captain, Olympic Flag Bearer, father of a 10-time Olympic medalist (Gary Hall Jr.), World Record Holder, former President of the U.S. Olympians Association and the Head Coach / Chief Executive of the famous enterprise known globally as THE RACE CLUB (hyperlink:  https://theraceclub.com Olympic icon Gary Hall Sr. makes me feel...

We sat down with Jonathan Maccoll, head coach of the swimming and diving program at Rutgers University. SwimSwam reported last week that Rutgers would be redshirting a significant portion of its team this year , and Maccooll was kind enough to explain the reasoning behind this. In short, because things are ever-changing with the COVID-19 pandemic, Maccoll says every athlete's situation is differen...

We sat down with Olympic champion Leah Smith , who was one of few national teamers who didn't attend a Pro Swim this past weekend. Leah was planning on attending the meet in Irvine, but as that one was canceled she opted to stay home and train. Smith details her last 10 months through the COVID pandemic, including prepping for ISL with Matt Grevers, being on a non-US based team for the ISL, and he...

As promised, we brought back Aussie legend James Magnussen for part 3 of his swimming story. Maggie brought us through the tail end of his career, post-2013 world champs all the way to the 2016 Olympic Games. Before his shoulder injury in 2014, Magnussen describes his plan for racing as much as he could and how he came to casually drop in-season 47s every time he hit the pool. It's worth a listen...

John Moffet is a renaissance man. In the pool he was a 1980 & 1984 Olympian, World Record Holder, World Medalist & Pan Pacific Championships Triple Gold Medalist.  Beyond the pool, after graduating from Stanford, he built an impressive career in entertainment winning 3 Primetime Emmy Awards and a list of credits too long to detail here. (Google John Moffet producer director and go to IMDB.)  Moreo...

We sat down with world junior champion Jade Hannah . She talked us through her quarantine, which included open water swims in lakes and the ocean, biking and running for hours, and doing dryland workouts at home. Jade also walked us through training at the HPC-Toronto, and what swimming consistently with the likes of Penny Oleksiak , Kylie Masse , and more has done for her maturity as an athlete....

We sat down with former world-record holder and Aussie breaststroke, Matt Wilson . Wilson took us through what his quarantine has looked like and some of the work that he's been doing in the lead-up to the 2021 Olympic Games. Wilson paces 30.lows in training consistently, indicating that we could see Anton Chupkov's 2:06.1 WR from 2019 go down come Tokyo. Click here to listen and subscribe on Spot...

We sat down with Cal breaststroke Ema Rajic , who had a big month of racing in November. After coming right off of the US Open in San Antonio, she went back to Cal for a dual meet with Stanford, where she broke her own school record in the 100 breast and went a lifetime best in the 200 breast. Ema breaks down what her quarantine was like before coming back to Cal, mainly training in Austin, Texas...

We sat down with national Jr. team member and #8 ranked recruit in SwimSwam's Class of 2022, Matt Fallon. Fallon competed at the Tigershark Swim Team Santa Claws Classic in Belton, Texas in mid-December, where he went a 53.52 in the 100 breast and 1:52.87 in the 200 breast, the latter putting him at #7 in the 17-18 age group all-time . Fallon explained how he's been training through COVID, his emp...

We sat down with national team member Phoebe Bacon , who we saw in action in November at the US Open. At the US Open in Des Moines, racing fellow national-teamer Regan Smith, Bacon dropped a 2:09.16 200 back, 1:00.18 100 back, and 2:16.05 in the 200 IM. Bacon broke down what training at her new home at the University of Wisconsin is like and how she got through quarantine, documenting her time tra...

We sat down with Matt Mauser , the musician who wrote the music for Kobe Bryant 's podcast, Punies. Mauser's wife, Christina, coached Bryant's girls basketball team and was in the helicopter crash that took her and Bryant's life. Mauser candidly discusses the effects of losing his wife and enduring a global pandemic while trying to move through his career as well as raise and teach 3 children (age...

Indiana University Head Coach Ray Looze unpacks the 2021 BIG TEN schedule, his plans for NCAAs, and proprioception (the perception of the position and movement of the body). I just call it Mind-Body Connection. Ray calls it the future of the sport and details his proprioception work at IU since 2015. Ray’s team (coaches and elite swimmers) are like an Aquatic Research & Development department inno...

We sat down with Catherine Breed , an NCAA All-American swimmer from Cal who was always a distance swimmer but now is seriously a distance swimmer. Catherine trains for marathon swims, which typically means swims that are over 20 miles in the ocean. In her most recent swim, the Monterey Bay swim, Breed broke the record for the fastest swim across the bay in a time of 2 hours and 53 minutes. Listen...