Ryk Neethling is swimming faster – and making his turns quicker – since he took up a scholarship at an American college
SWIMMING: Julian Drew
LIKE a long line of South African swimmers before him, Ryk Neethling headed off to America last August on a sports scholarship. But the 19-year-old from Bloemfontein has achieved something very few South Africans have ever done during his short tenure at the University of Arizona – in March he won an NCAA title.
The NCAAs are the American collegiate championships, and as Neethling says: “Many people believe they are the strongest meet in the world outside the Olympics and world championships.” Certainly it is no easy task to win an NCAA title.
Double Olympic champion Penny Heyns only won once in four attempts and that just weeks after breaking the world record in Durban. Even then she failed to win the 200 yards although she would go on to claim the 200m breaststroke at the Olympics a few months later. The last South African male to win the NCAAs was former 100m freestyle world record holder Jonty Skinner more than 20 years ago. Not even Peter Williams, who broke the 50m freestyle world record while he was in America, can lay claim to an NCAA victory.
Having finished fifth in the 1 500m freestyle at the Atlanta Olympics, Neethling’s signature was a valuable prize for America’s highly competitive university swim teams. He chose Arizona because it has the strongest long-distance programme. American champion Chad Carvin swims there and head coach Frank Busch is a US national team coach while his assistant Rick DeMont is a former world record-holder and Olympic 400m freestyle champion – later disqualified.
Neethling believes it is the level of competition which makes American swimming so good.”Every weekend you are swimming against the best people from all over the world and that really helps your swimming.
“As far as the coaching goes I think South Africa is pretty much up to date with the latest techniques.”
Even so Busch and his team have worked on specific aspects of Neethling’s swimming which he says have seen him improve considerably since going to America. “The most important thing with distance swimming is to keep your stroke strong and long and waste as little energy as possible. Even though I don’t do gym work I have got stronger through special exercises with paddles and that has automatically made my stroke longer.
“One of my weak points was always my push out at the end of my stroke when I got tired. My triceps were weaker than they should have been but now I’m stronger my push-outs have improved.”
One area where Neethling believes most South Africans can improve is their dives and turns. “People think that only the swimming is important but every little bit helps.” As with Heyns, Neethling had to improve his turns in America. “If your turns are bad you just get left behind like I did in my first few meets.”
The American collegiate circuit uses an indoor 25 yard pool and there are thus many more turns in a race compared with the standard metric distances in a 50m pool. Every day after training Neethling would remain in the pool and spend half an hour just practising his turns.
“They would film my turns and get in the water with me to show me how it’s done and now I am much better.” In his speciality event over 1 650 yards there are 65 turns and without honing his technique he wouldn’t have won the NCAA championships.
When Neethling was in South Africa for the national championships in March his times were relatively slow because of the altitude in Germiston but he believes his performances were better comparatively than in Atlanta. Now he says he is on schedule for something special at the Pan Pacific Championships in Fukuoka, Japan in 10 days time.
“In the 400m I’d like to go under 3:50 and that’s four seconds under my national record. In the mile I’m looking to go as close as possible to 15 minutes or even under that.” Busch says those times are possible based on his current training and should Neethling go under 15 minutes he will become only the seventh man in history to do so.
Even with Olympic champion and world record holder Kierin Perkins skipping Fukuoka to concentrate on January’s world championships and Olympic silver medallist Daniel Kowalski out with a shoulder injury, the Australians will still provide the main opposition for Neethling. Their new 16-year-old wonder kid Grant Hackett won his Pan Pacific trials in March in 15:03.67 and then won gold at the world short course championships in Gothenburg in a time only Perkins and the great Vladimir Salnikov have beaten.
South African attention in Fukuoka will once more be on Heyns as she makes her first serious excursion in the pool since Atlanta. Her old rival Samantha Riley from Australia is now back to her best form and along with her 15-year-old training partner Kristy Ellem – who won both breaststroke gold medals at the world short course championships in April – should push Heyns all the way. “I’m looking to go close to or faster than my best times in Fukuoka,” said Heyns.
Australia is not the only country with a rising star in the breaststroke, however, and South Africa’s 15-year-old Sarah Poewe could make the final in Fukuoka based on her recent time of 1:11.11 in Hungary. Amanda Beard, America’s teenage sensation in Atlanta last year, appears to be going through a rough patch at the moment.
But while Heyns is likely to occupy centre stage for a few more years yet, Neethling and swimmers like Brendon Dedekind – who also had a good season in America this year – are looking to play a bigger role in South Africa’s swimming success story. The 1,86m Neethling is still growing and gaining strength and Fukuoka could just be the springboard which will propel him to greater things at next year’s world championships in Perth and the Sydney Olympics when he should be at his peak.