{"id":412285,"date":"2020-01-24T06:54:30","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T13:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=412285"},"modified":"2020-01-25T19:06:12","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T02:06:12","slug":"make-adam-peaty-your-mature-model-of-the-athlete-matt-biondi-urges-americans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/make-adam-peaty-your-mature-model-of-the-athlete-matt-biondi-urges-americans\/","title":{"rendered":"Make Adam Peaty Your Mature Model Of The Athlete, Matt Biondi Urges Americans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Biondi<\/strong> has cited Adam Peaty<\/strong> as \u201cthe more mature model of the athlete\u201d that swimming needs as it enters a new professional era in which the director of the International Swimmers\u2019 Alliance<\/strong> will ask Olympic bosses to cough up $2m in prizes for every final at the Games.<\/p>\n

In our first look at The Athlete Voice<\/a> in Swimming World’s 2020sVision series<\/a>, Biondi laments that his fellow American swimmers’ “ability to understand all the many components that go into the Olympics” comes down to ” …\u00a0wake up early, I go to the pool\u2026, I do what my coach tells me to, I go home, I eat, I study, I sleep, I go back to the pool”. Swimming needed more athlete leaders like Peaty, he opined.<\/p>\n

Asked about the stance made by Peaty, the reigning Olympic Champion for Britain over 100m breaststroke, on doping, rules, money, the right to choose when and where to race and other issues, Biondi, American winner of five golds atop seven medals at the 1988 Games in Seoul, told Swimming World<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he fits into the more mature model of the athlete: he\u2019s confident; he\u2019s aware and you know, he\u2019s just honest, right?! The politician couches it so that everyone is happy; it\u2019s just so refreshing yo have someone like him take a side and call it like it is. We need people like that: he\u2019s got a good head on his shoulders. He\u2019s not just firing off.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The breaststroke pace pioneer who nailed project 56 with a World record of 56.88<\/a> over 100m to retain the World title for a record second time last July, challenged the FINA leadership to \u201cban me if you dare\u201d in 2018 when the international federation forced the cancellation of an International Swimming League (ISL)<\/strong><\/a> test event. Instead, Peaty and 30 others Olympic and World-Championship medallists gathered in London to back the ISL.<\/p>\n

Since then, Peaty has been outspoken on doping, podium protests and issues that affect the welfare and rights of athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll this stuff will appeal to athletes depending on where they are on that spectrum or where they are in the lights of their career,\u201d says Biondi.<\/p>\n

At 25, Peaty is a man six years beyond his breakthrough season on his way to becoming one of the most outstanding specialists in swimming history. In an interview with Biondi, related in the opening article in our new 2020sVision series today, Biondi turns to the 27 matches planned for the second season of the ISL and says:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the 27 matches will fit better with someone like Adam Peaty<\/strong> and, next year, Ryan Murphy<\/strong> and Nathan Adrian, Simone Manuel, Katie Ledecky<\/strong>, too, to some degree. Some of them may not want to train for the next Olympics because they will have been around a long time. So maybe get out on the road and see what you can do just heavy sprinting.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Michael Andrew – Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick<\/p><\/div>\n

Biondi cited Michael Andrew<\/strong> and his parents, Tina<\/strong>, manager of the New York Breakers<\/strong><\/a>, and Peter<\/strong>, his coach, as having \u201callowed coaches to rethink training. You want to train like you want to perform, right, so why am I swimming 10 400IMs when I don\u2019t swim the IM. What\u2019s the point?\u201d<\/p>\n

He felt swimmers had a learning curve ahead of them and cited his own country\u2019s swimmers as being behind their European counterparts when it came to understanding their workplace, saying:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had more success at the top level with the European swimmers than I have with the American swimmers and I think its just a part of the culture of the sport: athletes, so many of them, I would say, conservatively, three out of five, have no opinion at all. They just don\u2019t know what to make of it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n