- Cam McEvoy is not flying with his Australian teammates
- Veteran wants to stay in Brisbane until next month
- McEvoy is aiming for a medal in the 50 meter freestyle
Australian swimmer Cam McEvoy has decided not to travel to Paris with his Dolphins teammates.
McEvoy, 30, is bidding to become the first Australian man to win an Olympic medal in the 50m freestyle, and as a result, Swimming Australia has granted the veteran special permission when it comes to his preparations for the Games.
After last week’s trials in Brisbane, the first group of Australian swimmers left for France on Wednesday, while a second group was due to leave on Saturday.
Usually the team travels as one, but McEvoy is heading to Europe alone and insists he stays in Brisbane so he is in the best possible shape for Paris.
McEvoy, a three-time Olympian and Australia’s oldest swimmer heading to France, will arrive next month after revamping his training program but giving up swimming three years ago.
Cam McEvoy will not travel to the Olympics with his Australian teammates
The veteran is aiming for a medal in the men’s 50 meter freestyle in Paris
A focus on strength and resistance has produced great results, including a gold medal at the world championships last year, and this unique approach has led to him wanting to do things differently from his teammates.
Dolphins head coach Rohan Taylor received an offer from McEvoy’s coach Tim Lane, which will see the 30-year-old do some of his training at the Queensland Academy of Sport, where technology is in place to scrutinize every single aspect of his technique.
“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,” Taylor told the 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.
But thanks to a specialized program, he was cleared to travel later
‘Cam and his coach Tim [Lane] will visit on July 7th.’
Speaking about his preparations for the Games, McEvoy said: “I still have a few weeks to adapt and do a lot of race replications and adapt to the new speeds I’ve been achieving all year.
“I was 21.8 all year long. Now I’m low 21. I’ll get as much volume under my belt as I can, fly to France and then rest.
“I adopted the concept from the British speed cycling team. They built it up to a mock event, hitting personal bests for the first time, and then the exposure to the personal bests they had adjusted to was tapered off, and then got that extra 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 percent [gain].”