A trio of big-name swimmers have committed to compete in the upcoming Short Course World Championships in Australia in December.
In a newsletter from the AP Race Club, Olympic medalists Adam Peaty, Luke Greenbank, and Sydney Pickrem all indicated that they will race at the World Championships later this year. Pickrem also committed to racing at World Cup stops in Toronto and Indianapolis.
The 2022 World Short Course Championships will take place from December 13-18 in Melbourne, Australia. The move was confirmed after FINA was forced to withdraw the meet from Russia following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Peaty Turns a New Leaf on Short Course Meters
“I have been waiting a long time to have a proper ‘normal’ season with a full winter block of training,” Peaty said. “It has been two years since I have done that, so I am extremely motivated to attack the next few months of training and get the most from it.”
Last fall, Peaty competed on the British competition reality show Strictly Come Dancing, missing out on most of the fall season, including the ISL and the Short Course World Championships.
A foot injury in the spring then kept him out of the long course World Championships in June. After missing a chunk of training because of that injury, he raced at the Commonwealth Games in July, taking gold in the 50 breaststroke and placing 4th in the 100 breaststroke. He didn’t race on England’s 400 medley relay at that meet.
That injury threw a wrench into his ‘project immortal’ plans to create a World Record in the 100 breaststroke that would last for a very long time. After the Commonwealth Games, though, he said that he was having trouble mustering a ‘spark’ of motivation.
His commentary, which was submitted in a commercial presentation, indicates that he has found enough spark to at least compete at the Short Course World Championships, though. Peaty has had a love-hate relationship with short course racing in his career.
Starts and pullouts, which hold outsized importance in short course, have never been the strength of Peaty’s racing, though he has improved as his career has gone along. In 2018, he said “short course is pretty much dead to me. I don’t really care. People can do what times they want, but I know some of them can’t convert to long course.”
His tune seemed to change when the ISL declared a short course format. He was initially a vocal proponent for the league, though he later cooled on its prospects amid challenges with athlete and vendor payments. His 2018 commentary was made at a time when he was defending the ISL from FINA interference because FINA was trying to protect against conflicts with its short course jewels the World Cup and the World Championships.
Peaty would eventually break a World Record in the 100 breaststroke in short course meters (though Ilya Shymanovich has since grabbed that away). In spite of his previous protests against short course, among the very few holes in Peaty’s long and accomplished resume is the lack of a short course World Championship gold medal. He won silver medals in the 50 breast, 100 breast, and 200 mixed medley relay in 2014, but still has no gold medals.
“This season is a great opportunity to reset, put my injury behind me but also take the lessons learned from the last few years and apply them. I will be heading out to the World Short Course Championships and see how I get there, and then straight into a big winter training camp through Christmas and into the New Year.
“I am hungrier than ever to improve and move forwards, and I could not be more excited to get back into the training pool injury free and fired up! I have a lot of technical things I will be working on, as well as banking the work needed to give me a solid base with Paris 2024 on the horizon. Every day, Better Than Yesterday!”
In spite of the injury, Peaty would enter the 2022 World Championships as a favorite for gold in the 100 breaststroke: Ilya Shymanovich, the only swimmer who has been faster than him in short course, is currently ineligible for international competition because of Belarus’ participation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Greenbank Reflects on a Challenging Season
Greenbank said that while last season was “very rewarding,” that it was also challenging because of back-to-back competitions at the World Championships, Commonwealth Games, and European Championships.
“Last season was very rewarding but at the same time very challenging with the three competitions back-to-back in the summer, Greenbank said. “Also, from my perspective it probably was not my best season with regards to training after the Olympic year, having gone straight into the ISL and other events – there were just so many competitions!”
He came away with a silver medal in the 200 back and bronze medal in the 400 medley relay at the 2022 World Championships, a bronze in the 200 back at the 2022 European Championships, and a gold in the 400 medley relay at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
That followed a summer where he won 400 medley relay silver and 200 back bronze at the Olympic Games. While the color (silver vs. bronze) of his big 200 back medal was brighter in 2022, his time (1:55.1 vs. 1:54.7) was slower.
Greenbank echoed Peaty’s desire to get in a full training block.
“What I’m really looking forward to this upcoming season is to really get back in the pool and focus on the training because I know that’s going to really have a positive impact on the racing. We have got worlds at the end of the year, but like I said I’m just really looking forward to getting back into doing the hard work and hopefully coming away with a few medals at the end of a successful year. That would be perfect from my perspective, but at the same time I also just need to enjoy this next year as much as possible.”
Greenbank has no World Short Course Championship medals.
Pickrem Back in Texas
Sydney Pickrem, a Canadian, confirms in her note that she is back training at Texas A&M full-time. Pickrem trained there in college, where she was an 11-time All-American.
At the prior long course World Championships in 2019, she became the first Canadian woman to win 3 individual medals at a single long course World Championships.
“After a bit of time off finishing a crazy summer, it feels good to really be back where I want to be training-wise, and really focused leading into Paris. Right now, it is just really getting back to work, getting down to basics and the principles that I know I really want to work on. It is good to be back full-time training at Texas and so now I’m looking towards this fall, where I am going to compete in two out of three World Cups after the Ultimate Race Clinic, I will fly back to my hometown in Toronto and compete at the World Cup as well as in Indianapolis.
“Looking forward from there, I will go into trials in April for Canada, to compete at the World Championships in the summer. It is the first normal season I and many other athletes have had for a while, so it is all about doing things right, getting in the technical work and the correct training loads, whilst having one eye on the long game of Paris, which is less than 22 months away now!”
Pickrem is the only of this trio who raced at the 2021 World Short Course Championships (postponed from 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic). She won a gold medal in the 200 IM at that meet, her only individual swim.
Pickrem was announced as part of Canada’s full roster of 17 athletes for Short Course Worlds this week.
AP Race Club is the Adam Peaty-branded swim clinic tour. Pickrem is connected to Peaty and Greenbank through participation with the London Roar of the ISL.
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