For swimmers there’s the fixed presence of the black line. Up and down following the black line. Not so for backstrokers.
They’ll gaze on the solar, the moon and the celebrities. Or the ever-decreasing circles of a velodrome in Berlin the place fortunately no backstroker – utilizing the roof as a information – went round and round eventually yr’s European Championships.
It’s a swish stroke. Lengthy, easy and languid. Aside from the 50m dash, there’s little splash however as a substitute an obvious mild glide – misleading, although, given the ability and tempo that’s generated.
Emily Seebohm is without doubt one of the sky gazers. She turned Australian champion over 100m aged simply 14 in 2006 and went on to complete fourth within the World Championships the next yr in addition to being a part of the profitable 4x100m medley relay.
Now 22 and an Olympic and world silver medallist, Emily trains below the heat and glare of the Brisbane solar.
She says: “I prepare outside so with me being a backstroker I don’t have the black line, I get to look into the sky.”
Why backstroke? “After I began swimming I didn’t have a favorite stroke, I did every thing.
“It wasn’t till I bought older that I began liking backstroke extra as a result of I might breathe on a regular basis.
“I’m all the time engaged on my abilities as they’re so vital to your race and you may all the time enhance.”
Emily’s sentiments are echoed by Denmark’s Mie Nielsen.
“We swim on our backs, not on our stomachs so we will breathe on a regular basis.
“And when swimming you watch the ceiling, not the underside of the pool.”
Swimming is in Mie’s blood. Father Benny received silver within the 200m butterfly on the 1988 Olympics in Seoul whereas her mom Lone Jensen, the primary Danish girl to dip below the minute mark within the 100m freestyle, competed on the 1978 World Championships.
On the age of 13, Mie’s profitable time on the 2010 Danish Championships was contained in the reduce for the European Championships however her tender years meant she was too younger to compete in Budapest.
Undeterred, Mie adopted junior success in 2011 with a gold, silver and two bronze medals on the European Quick-Course Championships in the identical yr.
In 2014 she turned a triple European champion – aged 17 – earlier than rounding off the yr with three relay medals – two of them gold – on the World Quick-Course Championships in Doha.
It’s a sharp trajectory and she or he says: “I simply maintain working towards, I take heed to my coach and watch to see what different backstrokers do.”
Radoslaw Kawecki is a world long-course 200m silver medallist and short-course champion.
The Pole places stress on his underwater talent the place he’s submerged for the permitted 15 metres.
For the 23-year-old, backstroke was an inevitability, not a alternative.
“My swimming profession began after I was in Grade 4 in main faculty. From the very first days of coaching I knew that backstroke was my stroke.”
