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U.S. OLYMPIC SWIM TRIALSJuly 3, 2016Bob BowmanFrank BuschDavid MarshOmaha, Nebraska THE MODERATOR: Thanks, everyone, for coming out. It's been a great week. One exciting night left plus a great performance from Cirque du Soleil we are looking forward to. We wanted to invite Frank, Bob and David to give a synopsis of the week from the Olympic Team make-up standpoint and what they are looking forward to over the next six weeks. I'm going to turn it over to Frank, right now, who has an announcement to make in addition to his general comments. Frank Busch, USA Swimming National Team Director. FRANK BUSCH: Thank you very much for coming. It's always a pleasure to address the press under circumstances where we have just selected a great Olympic Team, and to be part of the excitement of Team USA going down to Rio. I couldn't be more excited about the team that's being selected, and when I say "being selected" we have a couple of events to go tonight. Tonight is going to be a lot of fun to watch some great racing. People have asked many questions about Rio and all the various obstacles and that, and all of you know that the Olympic city is chosen seven years in advance and if you can remember back when Rio was chosen in '09, it was in a robust economy, one of the most colorful and enjoyable places in the world to go. Everybody was very excited. I know the people there are very excited to have us. They are doing their best under some tough circumstances now, but I can tell you that Team USA is excited to go. At this time I would like to introduce to you the coaching staff that's going to join Team USA, and I'm going to start with the women, and I'm going to ask the coaches to stand up and be recognized for just a second. On the women's side, Coach Bruce Gemmell. (Applause.) Coach Greg Meehan. (Applause.) Coach Ray Looze. (Applause.) On the men's side, Coach Jack Bauerle. (Applause.) Coach Dave Durden. (Applause.) And Coach Mike Bottom. (Applause.) So one of the questions I've been asked the most, and the coaches will address some of these are, boy, it seems like there's a lot of first-timers on this team, and Chuck just informed me that in '12 we had 28 newcomers; in '16 we have 29 newcomers. I know it's because maybe some of the big names didn't make this team, but it's similar to the team that we took to London, and we're excited about taking this team to Rio. This is Michael's fifth Olympics. What an amazing accomplishment. I remember Michael swimming in 2000, when he was 15 years old, and Bob will never forget it, either, because we were -- I wasn't on the USA Staff at that time and Bob wasn't on the staff at that time, though he was in camp with Michael throughout, because he was 15 years old, and it was a good thing he was there. It was an amazing experience in Sydney and all the way through. I've had the opportunity to be all the way through. I have had the opportunity to watch this great talent. Ryan, his fourth Olympics, another amazing talent for the United States. Multiple, multiple gold medalist, many medals. Great to have him back on the team. We have several athletes in their third Olympics, and we have quite a few in their second. So the average age of the men's team is 23.9, on the women's side it's 22.3. I'm going to turn it over to the head coaches. Again, thank you for coming. Most importantly, thank you for your interest and your passion in our sport. So many of your faces I see regularly at big events, and for our sport it's so important that you're here and to be a part of this and share in the joy and excitement of every story and every kid and some that make it, some that barely miss, and the celebration of those that are doing this for -- that have had the opportunity to do this many times before and obviously for the rookies. Thank you to all of you for working hard for our sport; it's very much appreciated. I'm going to turn it over to the head coaches. BOB BOWMAN: Thanks, Frank. On the men's side of the equation, I feel like we've seen some guys step up that we haven't had before, and I can't wait to see them go to the Games and step up again. We had some tremendous races in swimming from -- and incredible preparation from all of these coaches that are sitting in this room, right? They did an amazing job preparing these guys for this meet, and I know they will continue that as we go into Rio. One of the things that we have always done well, better than anyone else, is improve from the Trials to the Games, and I'm confident we're going to do that again. We have a great plan in place to do that and quite frankly, we're going to have to do that if we want to have the kind of Olympics that we are expected to have and want to have. So I feel very good about where we are now, but I know going forward we're going to step that to a new level, and we'll see some new faces step up at the top. We have our tried and true guys: Michael and Ryan, those guys, we're going to be able to count on them, Nathan. But it will be exciting to have a group of new guys step up, swim on some relays and some individual events and kind of take us into the next era of swimming. David? DAVID MARSH: I think one of the things about this meet, like Bob was talking about, is this meet is about sharpening iron. There's a lot of blood that is shed in this pool, especially in the back rooms back here where -- and honestly, an emotional moment last night in the hotel when Cullen walked into the hotel lobby and the entire lobby stopped, more than anytime when another athlete that qualified went into the lobby, and at the end of the day, this sport is about people, and Cullen is one of their people, the people on the Olympic Team will be representing Cullen in the Olympic Games and when and Nathan step up for the 50 Free, they're going to be buoyed by the challenge that Cullen gave them last night, and that's going to happen in every event, and that's what makes the US strong is that not only that we -- that you have to go through a really tough test to get to represent the United States, but that along the way, your people, who are your toughest competitors, are often also your closest friends. So we will leave Omaha with a lot of tears, a lot of joy, giant challenge. We are going to have to improve for sure. On the women's side, I think there's some real strengths and there are some, I would say, significant challenges, event-by-event. Obviously Katie and Missy and Dana and the leaders that are experienced and have been down this road before, we're going to be counting on them to help kind of fast-forward the younger swimmers so that it's not an Olympic of an experience but it's an Olympic of performance. That performance starts yesterday, day before, a lot of people practicing in the pool right now. They're training right now and will be for the next six days at their home clubs to prepare for training camp, where we will prepare for Rio. So as much as you want to take time after the Trials to take a deep breath and go okay, honestly, there is not time. The next thing is right here, and that's called practice today. Q. One of the great things about the Olympic experience and especially going forward from camp to the Games itself is some of the bonding activities that you do. I think last time I remember a video that seemed to go viral from day one and I wonder if you have any specific things that you've got planned for the ladies and men and who your leaders in that process might be? FRANK BUSCH: Well, Mike, I'm certainly not going to tell you any of the inside scoop, because then it would be in "Swimming World" tomorrow. We obviously have plans for some activities outside of the pool, outside of the hotel. One of the most important things is to make sure that we -- when we house our athletes we're in locations where they can feel free to leave the hotel and be in a place that has items of interest to them, places of interest to them. So as far as what we do with things with inside the team, we have some skits and other things that we do to bond the team together, but we try and make sure that there are activities that just give them instead of thinking about swimming 24/7 and knowing the pressures that they're about to face in Rio, when we leave the pool we try and make sure that their mind is on something besides swimming. Q. For either of the head coaches, pivoting off Bob's comment about we do this five weeks, or whatever it is, better than anyone else, in your careers how much have you seen the philosophy of the Olympic year taper evolve? Let's take the last 16 as an example, how much more do you know? How much are you still guessing at how people are going to come out of it? BOB BOWMAN: Great question. Wow! I think one of the things we know, at least for our situation, having gone back to maybe '96, '92, we had early Trials in those years. Since then we have had a Trials that ends about 30 days prior. Statistically we are much better when we have the Trials later, and there are several reasons for this. No. 1, you pick your best team much closer to the Trials. You don't have to go through a full training cycle where a lot of things can happen, good and bad, but a lot of times bad things happen in a long period of time. And once they are at a peak level like they are now, it's much easier in my opinion to make small adjustments to help them improve or correct some things that maybe didn't go well here. So you know what you have, so it makes it easier to manipulate the training to get them to do what you want them to do later. I think we've become very, very good at that. I know I've learned from a lot of people like Mark Schubert and Frank Busch and David as I came along, because the system that I've been involved in has always been the late Trials. If you look at the numbers, we're very good at taking people who swim a good Trials, or even a poor Trials, and getting them to swim faster four weeks later. DAVID MARSH: I think a little of that is from the college systems, where generally they all have come through a conference and then an NCAA Championship, so they're pretty comfortable with, in essence, a double taper, and also an emotional meet, and then taking time to come down off it to be emotional again. But I really do think, and I think anybody out here will tell you the veterans when they qualify, you get relief. They made it. The young people, Kathleen Baker when she made it, it's pure joy, it's pure just joy and it's -- and honestly there's two different ways to get relief and joy ready. Relief and probably easier to get ready, because sometimes it's like, all right doggone it, and Michael and Ryan are in that situation where they're going to fourth gear now, out of third gear into fourth gear going in, and that's what it's going to take. Sometimes you need the information from this kind of meet to know what you need to do, and if you don't hit fourth gear with the person who is the joy person, they're not going to Rio. They're not making it. So I think that's the difference in what we're dealing with now. A phenomenal staff we have here. These are guys that have been through this and know how to make these adjustments, and I can assure you there will be some fun practices between -- I'm looking forward to learning from these practices and from these guys in the coming weeks to see what we do. Q. Bob, Michael said that he trusts that you have adjustments that you can make with him to get his times faster in the next few weeks. Are you clear on what you need to do and what did you think of his times this week? BOB BOWMAN: I thought his times this week were mediocre, and I am crystal clear on what I need to do. Q. Can you share? BOB BOWMAN: Cannot share. Q. And for both of you, in nearly half the events to this point, with two to go, the winning time here is slower than four years ago. What do you make of that, how do you explain it? DAVID MARSH: I don't have a good explanation. It's a -- no, I don't have a good explanation. BOB BOWMAN: I have some ideas, but I don't think I'm ready to put them in the "New York Times" right now. Q. (No microphone.) BOB BOWMAN: Maybe a little, yeah. DAVID MARSH: I think the thing that I would say is that as we have swimmers going to more and more Olympics and more and more years, there is probably a lot changing in the preparation, and I think we as coaches have to evolve, too, to understand how to get a 32-year-old ready versus a 22-year-old, and maybe sometimes when you're going through a taper, at least I know I'm guilty of this a little bit, that you kinda give a little bit more credit to the experience than maybe you should, and maybe a little bit more as you put on the preparation and the details of the taper and all the small aspects, because when you get here it all smacks you in the face anyway. It doesn't matter how much of a veteran you are. It's going to be challenging, it's going to be something that's going to test your mind, body and soul. BOB BOWMAN: One thing I do think, Karen, is in 2008, I thought we had a spectacular Trials here. I know there were suits, there's some things like that, but in general I think coming into this atmosphere and this event without knowing anything about it raised the level of everybody, because it's like, wow, this is something! I think as we've had another Trials here and another one, people know what the event is like and how big it is, and I think it makes them quite frankly more nervous when they come in because it's a much bigger stage. It's not like a swim meet; it's more than that. And everybody in the country -- you know, I walked around today, and I've seen the entire history of swimming in the hotel lobby. It's a much different event than it used to be in 2000. So I think that's a part of it. I think we need to learn how to deal with it, but I will echo what David said, for most of us, all the coaches sitting in this room, the hardest part of this journey is over. The fun part begins now, and if you think Michael wasn't nervous for those races, he absolutely was. Everybody is. Nobody is a sure thing here. Maybe Katie. Sorry, Bruce. You know how that works. Q. Bob, what specific steps, starting with training camp, are you going to take now to acclimate everybody for the 10 p.m. final? BOB BOWMAN: Very good. Q. Including sleeping when everyone else in the village is running around awake. BOB BOWMAN: Exactly. As USA Swimming, Frank led this, and I've been working with this for a while since I'm kind of interested in this kind of thing, so for a couple of years we have been working on a plan with Dr. Randy Wilber, who is a brilliant, brilliant physiologist with the USOC. And we're going to be gradually making the times of training later, starting with San Antonio, and then we're going to move it another step down, so we're very close to Rio in Atlanta. We're in Atlanta for a reason because we want to go from an Eastern Time Zone into Rio, only one time change, but it's west. So I think we have a very good plan to acclimate the athletes to later swimming, and they're not going to have a problem. If you look at physiology, when you are younger your body temperature keeps rising until it reaches a peak about midnight. That's why they stay up late so much. People like me, we reach our peak at 2 and start cooling down. That's why we go to sleep; right? So it's going to be the hardest on us. The kids I think are going to be fine. But we do have a very good plan for that. In terms of the sleeping, we have made some arrangements with how we are going to be in the village and where the athletes are going to be placed, versus other sports, to help them with that noise level, and we're using some other techniques that I think will make that better for them, so I think we've covered all the bases we can cover, and I'm confident that that won't be an issue. Q. Bob, you mentioned last Saturday, I believe, looking forward to maybe the infusion of some youngsters or youngsters stepping up, and you mentioned Ryan specifically. With respect to older people that maybe didn't make it because of these guys coming on, what's the excitement level for you and David to work with some of these 20 years old, 22 years old and see what they can do the next five weeks? BOB BOWMAN: Anytime you get the up-and-comers, it's always very exciting, particularly people that have had enough experience that you know they're going to be ready when we get there. The good news for us is the coaches who got 'em there are on staff, and we just get to sit back and enjoy, and we can help in some way maybe, but, you know, Dave will take care of Ryan. I'm sure he has his plan down and it's going to be fantastic. Those guys had as good of a meet here as I've ever seen, so I don't think we have to worry about anything in terms of that. The younger ones, I think the things they're going to learn the most from this are from the veterans. They're going to be up close and personal maybe with Michael or Nathan or people that they have idolized, and had they're going to see how they operate in a training camp environment. I know that one of the probably most important moments in Michael's life, and I won't go through the whole story, happened in 2000 where he just happened to learn a lot from Tom Dolan, and he idolized Tom Dolan. And when Michael first got there, he thought it was like Disneyland, right? It kinda was. Run around, all over Pasadena. He was using a lot of energy. I was on him to rest more. He didn't want to do it. They had so many things that they had planned, and I remember this one night they had this guys' night out to play video games. Well, at that time it would have been Michael's favorite thing in the world. And he was so tired in training, not really training that well. I'll never forget, he was sitting next to Tom after practice, and Michael and I had kind of had a little thing where I was like do you really need to do this? Maybe you should go to bed, and he said, "Tom, are you going to guys' night out?" And Tom was like, "No way, I'm getting ready for the Olympic Games. I'm going back and going to bed. Do you want to come back and watch a movie?" And Michael was like, "Well, yeah," and that really was a big thing, and from that Michael learned that you don't have to say yes to everything that's offered, and that's what these young guys are going to learn from the veterans, and that's something we can't teach 'em. Q. Bob, going off of that and then David what you said earlier about learning -- training a 32-year-old versus a 22-year-old. I think this is the first team in a very long time where there is not a 15- or 16-year-old. I think Katie is the youngest at 19. People have talked about Michael helping to expand the sport and allowing people to stay in it for longer. Is there a backside of that in which younger swimmers are not going to get Olympic experiences that will benefit them in four and eight years? DAVID MARSH: No, I don't think the Olympic Games is about the experience of having -- having experience at the Olympic Games. I think high-pressure meets -- as we've said a couple of times, this is a higher pressure meet, so they've got experience, and part of what you saw here was the people making the teams here generally have experiences before. Kathleen Baker can remember in exact detail when she was 11 years old as a spectator in the bleachers of this meet what she saw. Her parents describe her as literally she wouldn't get up to go get popcorn between things because she was so dialed into every detail, not just the races but how they walked out, how they took off their sweats, and then she made semi-finals last time and now she has made the Olympic Games. So that's happening already. I think it's great that the maturity aspect of the sport is raising higher and higher. I mean, all the college coaches that are in this room that are selected for this staff have committed their program first to the Olympic Games, really in some ways in opposition to what you're hired for from an athletic director's standpoint, the NCAAs and conference championships, and have sacrificed probably in some cases that process to commit further to the Olympic Games. As we know, the collegiate system is the heartbeat, maybe the competitive advantage, that we have enjoyed for a long time, and as we move more into the professional arena, we have to offer more and more to these professionals in terms of places where they can thrive, and that's up for our challenge, and I think it's only going to get better. I think it's going to happen more in the future, and I think you will see this trend happen more and more where swimmers that are at that kind of junior, senior, and on into young pro careers be the predominant athletes we will have on these kind of teams. Q. Bob and David, relay question. How will you handle relays with Michael and the events that he didn't swim here? Did he do that time trial? BOB BOWMAN: He did not do the time trial, and Frank decides all the relays! (Chuckles.) That's not true! Q. And David with Ledecky and her 400 Free Relay, she has talked about that. She didn't qualify for it, but what will the process be like? BOB BOWMAN: Here is the deal. Our job is to put together relays that can win gold medals; that's it. It's not to put a certain name on a relay, it's not to -- there are constraints that everybody who has qualified for a relay has to swim somewhere, depending on what their program is like. I think as coaches we're going to sit down and look at what happened here at the Trials. We're going to see how people are training, if people want to do time trials, they can, and if they don't, they don't have to, and we can kind judge where we think people are. At the end of the day the way it works is Frank and all eight coaches get together and we decide what the relays are going to be. It's not just Frank. It's more fun to put the blame on him. I think that's our own only goal, to put a relay together that wins a gold medal. If that happens to have Michael on it, that is fine, if it doesn't, that is fine as well. I'm not here to promote Michael's agenda. He has plenty of relay medals. We want our relays to win, and we want the four people on there who will do the job. DAVID MARSH: Specific to Katie, she is one of the females on the team, so she is considered for all the relays. So when we get there, some of the information we will get are how people are doing there. This is one of the meets where I would say there was different levels of preparation for this meet, and who is to say how we will be hitting it down there, and the more information we have the better. The rough thing for the Women's 400 Free Relay is it's the first day, so we don't have performance information like we would have later in the meet. If there is any change of information, it will happen during training camp. I think everybody takes all the information in. One change, though, is all the athletes that were selected have to swim in the morning or at night, and that does change the situation because you're not going to have as many sort of experimental swimmers. We had some rough relays last summer, and we have to put our people on the relays that would get us in the finals. The world, especially the men's side, 400 Free Relay and 800 Free Relay, Medley, their putting their "A" players in the morning swims now. Our first job is to get in the finals, because if you are going to win a gold medal, or any medal, you have to be in the finals to do that, and so we will be working on that. First meeting with the coaches today, I just said, if you have any guys like Anthony Ervin, in my case, that hasn't done a relay start in a long time, do a lot of relay starts in the next few weeks, please, so we can get comfortable with that. Q. In terms of getting the group together at training camp, how much does it help to have additional eyes from the coaches on different athletes? BOB BOWMAN: I think it really helps, you know? We all kind of do our thing on a daily basis in relative isolation. I think it really helps to have people sort of bounce ideas off of, validate some idea that you had, and I think it's a tremendous asset for everybody. We all don't look at things the same way, which makes us great, and I think you can learn a lot from each other and I think the athletes can learn a lot, and we can pick up things that will help them in that process, so I think it's a big advantage. DAVID MARSH: I think one of my favorite things of being on the staffs, really any National Team staff, is as much as we're all competitive, at what we do, with the swimmers we have, especially college coaches and to some degree club, when staffs are named and we head out together, it's unbelievable the collaboration that happens. Literally everybody will do anything for anybody, and it just stays like that. It's a really impressive atmosphere to get to live in for a while. It's the best stroke clinic and swim clinic you could every attend. Q. In his opening remarks, Frank alluded to swimmers this week who barely missed being on the team. Can you address those swimmers in particular who caught your attention that may be ascending who did not make the team? BOB BOWMAN: Wow, you know, I think there are a number of people out there that are in different phases, the ascending people who didn't make it? DAVID MARSH: There's a lot of third places that (Overlapping speakers.) BOB BOWMAN: That 100 Fly last night, two, three and four, that's some heartbreak for people. That was four one-hundredths and two more, six one-hundredths between the middle two. So my heart goes out to those guys. I do think there are people out there that came probably in here, a lot of these young guys that were looking forward to do something, maybe didn't, that have plenty of time. I would encourage you guys who write for web sites that lots of swimmers read to layoff these guys as soon as they do something good when they're younger, because it doesn't help them. I know your job is to get people to look at your site but I think there are young guys that have been living with this for two years that probably would have done better if they had been able to develop at their own pace and not have a lot of expectations placed on them by people who predict what they're going to do long before they are ready to maybe do something. For me, it's just part of this meet. I've been on both sides. There is nothing harder than coaching somebody who is third here. I had one two nights ago, and it's even harder when you have somebody first and somebody third or somebody second and somebody third. You have to be joyful for somebody and feel sorry for the other one, so it's a tough game here. I do feel like there are some people who just missed, and they'll use that for motivation, and some people that just missed who will use that to move on, and that's the way it works. It's what makes this meet great. Q. Dave, it's not every Olympics you have a mother on the team. What allowances will you make for Dana at training camp and at the Olympics given she has a toddler? FRANK BUSCH: Do you want me to answer that? DAVID MARSH: Sure. FRANK BUSCH: Karen, we have a family policy that we began before the last Olympics, and if you go to our web site you can see it. It's basically the spouse, children are permitted to stay in the same hotel during our first camp. Not on our floor, not participate in any team activities, but we want families to be comfortable. We want moms or dads to be comfortable. We want husband's or wives to be comfortable under these circumstances, because it's different. To think that's not part of their success would be ridiculous, and they're great role models for the younger people that we have coming through. But once we get to Atlanta, that's a different story. Atlanta our camps are closed to any coaches, to immediate family members, so at that point in time it's when we come together as a team and a staff and that's, I think, is our strength as we go forward. DAVID MARSH: I think it's a lot of maturity, too, and it's not just because of years but, you know, a baby puts it in a different perspective, which I think everybody respects. Today I was watching in the processing, you know, Michael was walking around with his fiancé and the baby and there was all the experience together, Dana, they were running around in between things. It's a beautiful thing, really. It adds, I think. It's a "big" add. Q. Coach Marsh, how important do you think it was for Kathleen to make this team, and what can she and her peers take this from this going forward? What do you think she can take away from this as she becomes a veteran on the stage? DAVID MARSH: For Kathleen she would tell you it's everything. Like it's exactly what she dreamt of as the 11-year-old, way before that probably but it's the coming together of all the things she had dreamed of and what it will do for her future. I don't know. I'm just focused on what it's going to do the next five weeks, and literally that's all we can do. I think it's appropriate after an Olympic Games to settle and gain perspective and then set plans for the future, so I think right now we're in it. She was in the water at 8:00 this morning, lifting weights this afternoon and making progress forward, but as you know better than anybody, she is one that has ridden the ups and downs and transplanted to Charlotte from Winston-Salem in order to follow her dream. So for her to accomplish that was a very high moment for everyone that's ever known her. THE MODERATOR: Thanks, everybody. 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