Head coach Bob Bowman
On taking momentum from Pac-12s into NCAAs:
“We have a process that we follow, which is very similar for any kind of meet. So what we're gonna do is take the feedback we got from swimming at this past Pac-12s and use that to hopefully be better at the next meet, which is coming up in Indianapolis. We swam well, we've been swimming consistently quite well. We're very happy to win the last Pac-12s, we put our name in the history books for that. But what we really want to do is take the swimming that we did there and learn from it and then come back into the training and use that information to be better next time when we swim in Indy.”
On what to improve on going to NCAAs:
“We're very strong in the relays. There are a couple things, we're probably gonna tweak on those relays about who swims what and where. So some things like that we'll probably work on. All of the individual events, you can always find something that you're trying to improve. Nobody's doing a perfect one, so everybody sort of has something that they took back away from that, that they can improve on.”
On what a team national championship would mean:
“It's a whole group of people and it's not just these guys on this team. I got here almost 10 years ago, nine years ago and there have been a lot of people who were part of the evolution of this program who chose to believe in what we were doing and, and joined us and grew a little part of the program and then passed it on to someone else. So it's really satisfying to see that we're in a position where that could happen. But I think that's what satisfies me the most is so many people are a part of it and it's something that quite frankly in 2015 when I got here was the farthest thing from, but that you could imagine we would do. So when I was talking about one day we'll compete for a championship, everybody's like, ok, you can't be serious. It's kind of like Léon in the Paris Olympics, but we just sort of stayed with it and just believed and to be close to it now, it's very satisfying and exciting and I think it would be an amazing thing.”
On the evolution of the program:
“I know the steps, there were just a lot of steps and it took a lot longer than I thought it would. In the beginning, like I said we didn't have people on the team who were capable of swimming at that level. So that made it difficult. There were a couple of people that had some ability but not a lot of them. So we tried to start recruiting people and we had some struggles in the beginning because it was hard to convince some of the top swimmers to come swim on a team that didn't have other top swimmers. That was hard but we started to make progress when we got Grant House and we got some people of that level, the national junior team. So we just started building and building and building. We were really moving along pretty normally and then COVID hit and everything shut down and then we decided to not compete the COVID year and concentrate the talent on the team and that proved to be a pretty good decision.
We came out of that and we're six at NCAAs and then the next year, second, and then this year, we'll see how it goes. But so I think it's been relatively logical in terms of how you would build a team. But having said that it was incredibly difficult and frustrating along the way, it's not like it was we're gonna do this, this, this. It was like, well, this didn't work, let's try something else. We recruited somebody, took a risk on somebody, it didn't pay off. There were some surprises that came in that got a lot better. So the thing that I think overall has made us so strong of a team the last three years is we built a team culture. It's not necessarily the personnel, but it's the way that they interact, the attitude they bring to their work, the standards that we have for each other and I think that's made a big difference and that was always here. It just had to have the right people to come in and make it happen.”
On how he helps swimmers develop:
“I think the main thing that helps these guys that are already good swimmers when they get here and get better is I raise the bar every day. I'm constantly raising the expectation level of what they could do and challenging them in ways that they haven't been challenged and, you know, as they meet those challenges, they get better and better. So I think that's the secret of what I do is just don't be too satisfied with anything, right? Say nice job, but you could do this and just try to keep them moving forward.”
On feeling pressure:
“To be honest, we don't think about other people at all. We just focus on what we're gonna do. They can think whatever they want. The thing that matters is, are we prepared on the day? Are we our best selves and ready to give our best effort when it's needed? If we do that, it'll be good. If we don't, it won't. It doesn't really have anything to do with what other people do or how they prepare.”
On his first interaction with Léon Marchand via email and how he handles pressure:
“Well, thinking back, when I first got that email, the first thing that I thought was Marchand, Xavier Marchand, I thought about his dad. I wonder if they're related and they were, of course. So then he said, do you think maybe you'd be interested in having me on your team? I wish I had the email, maybe I could look it up. But, then I looked up his time.
I was like, oh, most certainly we'd be happy to have you on our team. But so that was it.
I think that I was thinking about his dad because I thought the name struck with me and I thought this must be his son. When I found out I was, I was like, wow, he's could probably be a really good swimmer. The other part is I think Leon’s fully capable of handling the pressure and performing, just so we're fully prepared. That's the key to these meets, it's not preparing for the pressure, it's just preparing for the event, right? If you prepare for the event in the right way and you've done everything you can do, the other stuff is manageable, so that's our focus.”
Junior swimmer Léon Marchand
On what his thoughts were learning the 2024 Summer Olympics would be held in home country back in 2017:
“Well, not really because at the time I was not really good at swimming, I was not even making national finals and stuff. So I don't think it was really an idea in my mind. I just heard the news and I was like, darn, that would be that'd be cool to do it, but I'm so far from it. At that time I was like, maybe five minutes in the 400 (meter) IM. So not really at the time, but definitely I got really excited every year more about it.”
On when he felt like he got to where he’s at now swimming compared to when he was younger:
“I think my technique was really good from the very beginning when I was young. But I was not really a racer, I didn't want really to win. I was just like swimming every day a little bit to have fun. But I got better when I was 17. I grew up a lot because I was a tiny man, and then from 17 to 20 I got way better every year. I started working more on my underwater, which was what my positive stuff to do and so before that, I was not that good.”
On competing at NCAA’s versus international competitions:
“I think NCAAs are the most intense meet of swimming, I think for sure. There's a lot of energy involved and you don't swim only for yourself. You swim for bigger that, just for the team. So the stress is different. I get pretty nervous about that because I don't want like disqualify the team when I do something like that. When I go to Worlds, it's just me and myself. So it's it's very different. But I will say NCAAs are the most fun to the most fun to do, so we're always very excited to take part of this meet.”
On what a NCAA championship would mean:
“I think just winning NCAAs would be amazing for the team. I’ve won some stuff myself individually and the first thing I wanted to do was share stuff with my family or my coach or my teammates and that's what NCAAs is about if we win, it’s all together. So I think the success will be definitely different, but that's a huge meet and we still far from it, so we will see.”
On managing stress:
“The first thing that I worked with with my mental trainer was about like managing my stress and how nervous I was before meets because when I was really nervous, I could not swim like my own swimming stroke and stuff. I wasn't swimming well, so I worked on that, trying to be as relaxed as possible before meets, during the meet. I also worked on how I could manage my energy during the entire week because Tokyo or Paris or long meets and when you need to swim well on the first day and then just shut it down, go back to sleep and then have more swims like three or four days after. So it's pretty hard to do. I've been having this breathing technique I can use to help you fall asleep or help to prepare before a race that I always do. The breathing technique definitely helped me a lot. I do some meditation sometimes but all of that just to say I focus on myself and everything else.”
On visualizing what this year’s Olympics would look like:
“I don't really visualize though, I like to keep the surprise. I like to just go day by day. But I don't like to celebrate just at the beginning of the meet. Paris is gonna be nine days, so I just trying to keep my energy until all my races are done. That would be amazing to win there in front of the French crowd, just be at home. That would be the best time to win for sure. I'm trying to prepare for that and then of course, I will celebrate if I win, but I don't really like visualize and I don't see it still. So I'm just focused on NCAAs and then we'll see.”
On what mades Bob Bowman a unique coach:
“I think Bob Bowman’s a unique coach because I’ve never seen someone as involved as him. Whenever we do a very hard set, he will run around the pool deck to try and cheer for us. He is so involved, it’s really amazing to see and he’s always gonna push you and he will make you feel confident about your work and swimming meets are pretty easy now because we do all the hard work during practice. He make it more fun to practice too, so that's why he's unique. He also has a lot of experience for sure, but there's a lot of things. For Paris, my goal is I want to be an Olympic champion. I don't know which swim or which even, I want to win. don't, I don't care. I just wanna do as many swims as I can do, it's gonna be really fun to do. So my first goal is to, to prepare as much as possible right now and then we'll see what happens there.”
On keeping in contact with his coach back in France:
“I always send him some sets that we do here with some practices, he’s really interested. He wants to know what I'm doing every week. So the last two months before the Olympics, he will be like 50 percent of the preparation with coach Bowman and him.”
On breathing techniques:
“So there's different ones but the one for like falling asleep for, for example, I would just breathe only with my nose for like a couple of minutes just help me to stay calm and just fall asleep and then before before warm ups. So before races, it would be more like a dynamic breathing, I close my eyes and think about my swims or like my stroke and some words that make me like feel better. That's helped me a lot to like manage my energy for the meet.”
On what’s on his mind while racing:
“Not really, I don't really listen to my feelings because sometimes I could not feel well and still do well in the water. So I'm trying to lie to myself all the time. I'm in, I'm in good shape.
I can do it. I don't really listen to that all that. I'm just trying to do my best in the water, touch the wall as fast as possible, that's all I do. I was close to the record so it was in my mind but like if I wasn't gonna break it, it was gonna be maybe sooner or later. So, I don't really tell myself stuff before. I just wanna race as fast as possible. It was pretty fun because Zan was there, he's a really good swimmer in the team too and we rested a little bit in the beginning and that was fun and I was just trying to focus on my pace and trying to be as fast as possible.”
On preparing for the Olympics:
I don't think going to the Olympics will be a deception even if I don't make the final but I'm really confident and I think I can do it. If I'm not, it's OK, I'll, I'll prepare for the next one, right? But I think this is the this is the right time to do it, so I'm gonna try to prepare for it.
I mean it's still gonna be fun, just meet all the swimmers around the world, just meet all those people watching sports, but I think it's pretty rare watching swimming too.”
Sophomore swimmer Hubert Kós
On the mental state of team moving into next steps:
“I think we're really happy. All of us winning a Pac-12 championship is really a great thing. But especially this year, I think all of us really know what's gonna come next and we know exactly what we have to do on the next step and it's not really gonna be that easy because we figured that one out last year, we won Pac-12s but we couldn't get the job done at NCAAs. So I think there's a new level of focus that we're bringing to the table this year that we didn't have last year and I hope that it's gonna help us succeed.”
On training under head coach Bob Bowman:
“I trained in Hungary for most of my life and I came out here to America and everything was so much more different, so much more well specific and focused on the process and what we have to do. I think adding a lot to Bob said, I've never really since the time I've been here felt like I could sit back and relax in my position where I am right now. I won Worlds over the summer and I came back and I think I had two or three weeks off, and straight back to work. He didn't really have as big of a break as we normally would back home. So I think this idea that we have to focus on the process, focus on the work all the time and the outcome and the outcome that we want will come along the way, it's really just such a, such a positive thing to teach the people. I think I have just sort of started to grasp what he's been teaching us and even after I set an NCAA record a couple of weeks ago and came out of the water and he was already looking at me that way. So I knew that I made a mistake and I already knew what the mistake was. We can never really sit back and relax in this team, and I think that's a really, really positive thing.”
Freshman swimmer Ilya Kharun
On what makes head coach Bob Bowman so special:
“He just pushes you every day. He's a really great coach, I love doing li the sets and stuff that he prioritizes strokes. Like if it's IM, he does IM. If it's fly, fly and free, free and he's really good at versatility and how to make each swimmer better. He works on the techniques and the strokes on each person and he just does it on another level and it's great.”
On what he’s learned from upperclassmen in his first year :
“It’s just a great team sport, I love swimming with these guys every day. They push me to my limit, they always try to motivate me to do better. Sometimes Hubi teases me during practice but that just makes me want to go faster. Just being around these guys makes me a whole different swimmer and you just have to be a part of it to experience it to just be around these guys.”