The Ohio swimming team is looking for a fresh start in the second half of the season.
It is not a new beginning but an actual racing start. The Bobcats have been paying special attention to the mechanics of starts and turns as they get ready for a home dual meet against Denison today.
When we go from our holiday training to our Winter Quarter training
we start to work on all the small details - starts turns finishes
Ohio coach Greg Werner said. We really saw at Ohio State that we weren't very good on the walls and with our speed
but we hadn't worked on it. Now
it's time to refine those things.
To the average person, though, a racing start does not look complicated, but to a veteran swimmer, the start requires a specific thought process. Freestyler Eric Flecher said getting off the blocks quickly and being ahead in the first 10 seconds of a race is crucial.
Especially in the sprint events
more so than the distance events
it's extremely important to get out in front of the wake that the rest of the field creates and get to the first wall because that wave can actually throw you down later on in the race
said Flecher, who was named Mid-American Conference Swimmer of the Week Jan. 6.
For the men, the starts could mean the difference between falling to the Big Red and beating them for the sixth straight year. Although no Ohio swimmer has ever lost to Denison, Fletcher said the meet has always come down to the last few events and, in some cases, the final relay.
One factor that will play into the meet this year is that Denison is on a similar schedule to us where they finished their aerobic training phase probably about two weeks ago
and so they'll probably be around the same training as us
Flecher said. They've had some pretty good meets this year.
Diving looking for perfection
The next few weeks will be a gauge for Ohio diving as to where it stands in relation to what it accomplished during the holiday break and how that will stack up against the MAC.
With four MAC meets for the women and two for the men just on the horizon, diving coach Rob Bitner said the training was successful, but is waiting to hit its plateau in late February.
We did a number of repetitive dives - I'd say five
