I had a swimmer once who was more motivated than me. She desperately wanted to train more but I didn’t have additional hours. I compromised, after thinking about it, I thought why not, so I negotiated a small space for her to do a hard set of vertical kicking in mornings my squad wasn’t in. She did an extra three mornings per week. She did her sets and was out-of-the-way of the other (senior squad) while she did her extra work. All vertical kicking.

I didn’t think she’d keep it up but she did. Her kicking fitness became awesome in six months and I looked forward to her big backstroke race at the National championships, Olympic Trials for Atlanta, in Montreal, Quebec.

The pool in Montreal is an architectural wonder. The ten meter tower had an elevator, the stands curved around half the pool, the electronic display was state-of-the-art (for the ‘76 Olympics anyways) and the huge 10 lane pool was deep and fast. Everything was space-age-like.

The pool sits in an unusual part of the Olympic Stadium. If you didn’t know it, you wouldn’t expect such a huge pool to be under the stadium tower. But the whole building is a bizarre wonder.

If you are a backstroker, straight lines are your friends. Swimming in odd shaped buildings often doesn’t make swimming straight easy. In the Montreal Olympic pool, the ceiling is a hyperbolic parabolic structure. Hanging off this engineering marvel, over the pool, attached to the ceiling, are two giant eye shaped trusses for the lighting. Not a straight line anywhere.

Swimming under these lights, if you are not actively paying attention, sends you off to one side of the lane, and then, as the lighting truss curves, sends you to the other side.

Now back to my backstroke story (😎). My swimmer was in one of the first unseeded heats because she had qualified in a short course pool. The standard then, was to have swimmers with converted long course qualification, (ie. from short course) in the first heats.

No one paid any attention to those heats but I was riveted in anticipation. She was swimming way faster than she ever had… I was ready for the coach’s happy dance!

On the first length of her 100m backstroke she broke the age group record for 50m back for our Province …to her feet. She was kicking ass! I was watching and shouting: look at her go! Obviously the head coach wasn’t interested but she split 29 and she wasn’t slowing down. Then, it happened.

She passed the 75m mark and abruptly began veering towards the lane line. She started following the lights!. I’d swum in that pool many times and knew this was a common problem. I had mentioned it to her but in the heat of the moment, so far ahead of her heat, blasting down the final stretch…she must have forgotten.

Then in one huge stroke, one huge perfectly lifted shoulder, she basically landed on top of the lane line! She came to a complete stop. She was confused, re-established herself and then swam again.

Her time was still slightly under her best. Which was a surprise and indicative of how fast she was actually going.

Looking back at the splits of all the racers, her split was top two! Of course she didn’t swim in the final. She was distraught and understandably upset. Most irritating was the head coach didn’t see it, fobbed her splits off as ‘she died’ and didn’t give it a second thought. I thought to myself…hmmm, (I can’t write it; but starts with ass and ends with hole).

My consoling didn’t help, she subsequently switched her focus from swimming to rowing and in four years made the national rowing team and an Olympic spot. I can’t help but think; her life would have been so different and probably mine too.

I found a photo of the pool in Leeds. You can see how this roof was hard to follow in a straight line.