Lotte Friis Makes Decision to Stay at North Baltimore With Bob Bowman

By Rokur Jakupsstovu, Swimming World Scandinavian correspondent

BALTIMORE, Maryland, November 17. INITIALLY billed as a temporary stop heading into the 2013 European Short Course Championships being held in Denmark this year, top-flight Danish swimmer Lotte Friis has gone public that she’s going to stay with the North Baltimore Aquatic Club through the 2016 Rio Games according to BT.

In September, Friis left Nice temporarily for Baltimore, where she has settled in so well that she prolongs the stay and makes it permanent from January 2014.

“I’ve looked at the opportunities I had to keep up the desire to continue towards Rio, and in the two months I have been in the U.S., I found out that it was something I wanted permanently,” says Lotte Friis to BT.

In the U.S., Friis became part of an extremely elite training environment with several Olympic and World Championship medalists in the pool, and besides the world-famous Bob Bowman a coaching staff consisting of a number of recognized specialists.

“I will be training the same amount, as I have done in Nice, but also I get a physical trainer who focuses more on what kind of physical training on land can make me better in the water. I feel it is a little more focused physical training towards how it can improve me in the water, than I have tried before,” says Lotte Friis.

“Generally, they are some fantastically capable coaches, and Bob Bowman has not only acquired some really great results with Michael Phelps, but is also really nice and a very supportive coach to be with. The whole team is very elite, and it all takes place on a real high level, which I think is really cool, but at the same time they are also nice people to deal with, and that obviously means something,” says Lotte Friis.

The 25-year-old swimmer is beginning to consider her life on land after the swimming career, and here is the opportunity to prepare herself better, than it would be in France, which also played a role in her choice.

“The U.S. has both some good training opportunities with some really talented coaches, and secondly, I have the opportunity to study, as it is after all a bit easier in English than if it had to be in French in Nice,” says Lotte Friis, who plans to enter the television and media organize training when she puts her swim cap on the shelf — at the earliest after the Olympics in 2016.

BT article.

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