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

Freestyle pioneer Cameron McEvoy will not fly to France with the rest of the Australian Olympic team this week – and there is a special reason for that.

McEvoy booked his place in the upcoming 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 in four Olympic Games when he steps into the Paris pool.

MvcEvoy achieved this feat after retiring from swimming before returning with a revolutionary training regimen.

Instead of endless pool work, McEvoy does rock climbing and gymnastics, tinkering with techniques he keeps close to his chest… for now.

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

McEvoy has a secret personal training program and he has been given permission to stay in Brisbane and complete it while the rest of the Dolphins begin their own training camp in France.

“They felt that the disruption to his training due to trials, with travel and adjustment to jet lag, would potentially slow him down and pose a risk to them,” Dolphins head coach Rohan Taylor told the BBC. Sydney Morning Herald.

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

“It was better for him to stay and continue his preparation because he trains so specifically and uses such specific things, like the indoor pool, the cameras, the blocks and the resources that the QAS has. He uniquely trains this way and no one else really does that… so I felt like I wanted to support that.

‘Cam and his coach Tim [Lane] will visit on July 7th.’

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

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

‘And if I can maybe go sub-22 (seconds) again, I would be very happy with that.

The talented 30-year-old becomes the first Australian man to swim in four Olympic Games

“What I’ve done so far has blown away any expectations I had.

“I’m most excited to try to get this (Olympics) done and then just take what I’ve learned and just spread it to the public.

“I know there are a ton of swimmers who have been in my position, are currently in my position, who want to learn from that, a lot of coaches want to learn from that.

“It could do a lot of good for a lot of athletes who love the sport but aren’t quite on the right track yet in terms of the type of training and philosophy.”

McEvoy offered a partial look: He combines funky strength training outside the pool with technical details in the water.

“The nature of my training is literally reproducing the race pace, the race environment, every week, all year round,” he said.

“I’ve probably done close to 1,000 race reps in wetsuits since 18 months ago… so by the time I get up and race, it’s second nature.

“I can try to turn off that cognitive side of my mind and just let everything flow.”

An example is the start dive, which includes the time it takes to reach the 15 meter mark.

“My best time before I came back to this was 5.5 seconds, now it’s 5.1,” he said.

‘So literally from a jump, a few underwater kicks and four strokes I’m already almost half a second faster, which is crazy on a 50 freestyle.

“The rest was just strength within the stroke – not brute force… I just tried to load that with as much weight as I could without destroying that technique.”

“We’ve gone down a lot of rabbit holes in that regard and we’ve probably discovered a lot of new things for the sport that, again, we’ve kept close to ourselves.

“But we’d like to get it out post-Paris.”