The Morning Swim Show, Oct. 26, 2011: Eric Friedland Expects Big Things in Senior Year

PHOENIX, Arizona, October 26. ERIC Friedland is gearing up for his senior year at the University of Texas, and on today's edition of The Morning Swim Show he talks about his personal goals, as well as the team's expectations this season.

Friedland, the reigning NCAA champion in the 200 breaststroke, talks about the insight he has gained from training with Brendan Hansen, his thoughts on his chances to make the Olympic team and the race for the team championship at NCAAs. Watch the full show in the video player below and visit SwimmingWorld.TV for more video interviews.

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Show Transcript: (Note: This is an automated service where some typos and grammatical errors may occur.)

Peter Busch: This is The Morning Swim Show for Wednesday, October 26th 2011. I'm your host Peter Busch. Joining us today in the FINIS monitor is Eric Friedland. He's in his senior year at the University of Texas and he is the reigning NCAA champ in the 200 breast. Eric Friedland joins us right now in the FINIS monitor from Austin, Texas. Eric, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Eric Friedland: I'm doing good. How are you doing today?

Peter Busch: Doing well, thanks. There are not so many guys who go back to back in the 200 breaststroke. You might be the first guy through our quick research since Brendan Hansen.

Eric Friedland: That would be a neat occurrence to happen.

Peter Busch: Now obviously that is the goal this year but how's training going? How are you feeling?

Eric Friedland: I feel pretty good. Brendan's been doing a lot of travelling recently and he's finally settled back down and we're going to get some good training ahead of us.

Peter Busch: What's Brendan like to train with?

Eric Friedland: He's great. He knows everything you could ever know about breaststroke.

Peter Busch: So it's not just that he's a fast swimmer, you can kind of pick his brain as well?

Eric Friedland: Yes, and he loves to give advice and he'll help everyone. He does and it's awesome to have him around.

Peter Busch: Give me an example if you could. What's something that you've learned from him about the stroke or about racing?

Eric Friedland: Well a lot about racing – like how important going into the turns are and preparation for every race and how to swim every race – he's just great. And he's taught me a lot about moving my hips up forward when I'm breathing through the stroke and that helps a lot.

Peter Busch: Moving your hips up forward?

Eric Friedland: Yes, like sliding them forward.

Peter Busch: Is that like keeping momentum?

Eric Friedland: It's like just getting the extra couple of inches every stroke or so.

Peter Busch: Last week we interviewed Nolan Koon from CAL, a great breaststroker in his own right, but he's kind of in the same situation as you. He's obviously had tremendous success at the collegiate level, not quite in the conversation yet for "Is this guy going to make the Olympic team? Is he going to make medal stand?" that sort of thing. How's your confidence with taking it to that next step of making the biggest meet in the world?

Eric Friedland: Well I'm just going to play it by ear. I'm going to train as hard as I can and prepare myself as well as I can for the Trials and see how it goes.

Peter Busch: What do you like your chances with? 100 or 200?

Eric Friedland: The 200.

Peter Busch: A lot of guys that swim the 200-yard sometimes do better in 100 meter that's why I asked.

Eric Friedland: That's okay.

Peter Busch: But you like the longer distances for sure.

Eric Friedland: Yes, Eddie doesn't think I have much speed and he's probably right.

Peter Busch: Now you swim for Texas, you guys are like the New York Yankees. You're not going to win the World Series every year but you're always in the conversation. We've got you probably as the favorites this year after CAL won last year. The team now, you've been there four years, you're a senior – how does it stack up to past Texas teams?

Eric Friedland: Well the training atmosphere right now is unbelievable. We got certain freshmen like Clay Youngquist who just brings out the best – he's an unbelievable trainer and he brings out the best training in everyone which is real fun to see and the atmosphere has just been unbelievable this whole year.

Peter Busch: Best training atmosphere you've seen since you got there?

Eric Friedland: It rivals how it was my freshman year and that was unbelievable.

Peter Busch: Freshman year – remind me what that was like – who was there and what was going on then.

Eric Friedland: It was when Klueh was a senior and Ricky and Dave and Scott Spann were all juniors.

Peter Busch: It's like the All-Star team. It's just like the Yankees. So Clay's already making an impact you were saying?

Eric Friedland: Oh, he's making a great impact.

Peter Busch: That guy was a good get – no doubt about it. You guys finally get to compete this weekend. Raring to go?

Eric Friedland: Yes, we're sending a few people out to Dallas and it should be a good meet.

Peter Busch: Now the team in general – let's talk a little bit more about the landscape of college swimming this year – do you guys see a specific team as your rival? I know there have been a lot conference shakeup as well. How is it in terms of just focusing on Texas swimming and knowing that you guys got your goal?

Eric Friedland: Well we are not necessarily going to focus on any other team, we're just going to prepare for ourselves and do as well as we can and hope for the best.

Peter Busch: How's Coach Reese doing? I know he had a little heart scare six months ago. Is he the same old funny guy on deck?

Eric Friedland: He's still hilarious with his jokes of course and he's been great.

Peter Busch: He's a beauty. Eric, thanks a lot for joining us. Good luck with the senior year. It's going to be fun to watch.

Eric Friedland: Thank you.

Peter Busch: All right, that's Eric Friedland joining us in the FINIS monitor from Austin, Texas and that is it for today's show. I'm Peter Busch reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.

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