I Have to Race Who? What to do When Your Teammates are Your Biggest Competition

Photo Courtesy: Twitter, @RAYSswimming

By Olivia Wile, Swimming World College Intern.

For swimmers, it’s almost that special time of the year. With taper right around the corner, athletes are slowly getting their energy back, feeling better and getting more and more excited for championship season. In a few short weeks, it will be time to suit up, shave down, get behind teammates and swim fast.

During this time, going to practice feels easier and morale seems to improve: it’s fun preparing to swim fast with your teammates. However, getting ready to chase down some personal bests and face the competition can be a bit nerve-wracking – especially when your competition is your teammates.

Racing teammates is inevitable throughout the season. In fact, it happens daily in practice and regularly during dual meets. Embracing this friendly competition doesn’t seem so bad during these scenarios, though. Yet when the stakes get higher, it can be a little more difficult when your teammates are your main competitors.

Leave it in the pool

evan-austin-fist-bump-sportsmanship-paralympic-trials

Photo Courtesy: Kevin McCarthy

The sport is called competitive swimming for a reason: it’s competitive. Most races come down to tenths of a second – even hundredths. With only eight to 10 spots in each final, racing and beating the competition is an important aspect of the sport, which makes competing against teammates so tricky.

In these situations, it’s important to leave your efforts and emotions in the pool. Whether you’re on the winning or losing side after racing a teammate, perseverating on the result of the race has the potential to put a dent in the team morale. Try to be happy for your teammates and support them. Leave the rest in the pool.

Exhibition swimming

An element of championship meets that can potentially hinder team morale is the exhibition rule. At some championship meets, only a certain number of athletes are able to score. For teams with large rosters, this means some must be exhibitioned, meaning they cannot score points or qualify for finals.

Though being an exhibition swimmer may seem discouraging, the opportunity to swim best times and have fun with teammates is still present. Having an X next to your name does not define you as an athlete or measure your potential. It’s natural to feel disappointed or upset, but it is especially important for swimmers to get behind each other if this is the case.

Watching your teammates swim fast is fun.

Photo Courtesy: Dan D’Addona

After five months of training, everyone deserves to have a killer championship meet. Though this is not always the case, it can still be fun and even inspiring to watch your teammates have a killer race.

It’s important to remember there is no timeline for success, and if the meet isn’t going how you had hoped, try even harder to get behind your teammates. There’s nothing quite like team spirit during any meet but especially at championships.

There’s no timeline for your success

Just about every swimmer has worked throughout his or her season and wants to do well. In fact, it’s hard to consider that any athlete would go into a championship meet expecting or wanting to fail.

Therefore, if things start to go wrong for you but well for others – or perhaps well for you and wrong for others – it’s important to humanize your teammates. Over the last five months, you all have put in an enormous amount of work. As low as you may feel after missing out on that A final, getting kicked off a relay, or simply being beat by one of your teammates, try to remember that your own success has no timeline.

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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Suzie Thompson

5 years ago

Or their parents can!?????

Suzie Thompson

5 years ago

Eat the weak!!!

Nathaniel L Zimmermann

5 years ago

Meet feels like just another Practice, Race each other every day in Paractice

Leslie Cichocki

5 years ago

Or call it a fancy lactate set. Racing your teammates is good practice. Always there to help push each other.