Junior swimmer Léon Marchand
On how he’s able to focus on one thing at a time:
“I think the NCAA system is good for that because we have one individual meet at a time. I think we’ve been doing pretty well and just focusing on each dual meet. We won every single one except the one at Cal, we tied but that was still a great one, too. Now I’ll focus on the next step which is Pac-12s in two weeks and then NCAA in one month. So that makes it it easier to focus on the next step. We’ve been practicing this a lot, so should be good.”
On his growth since competing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics:
“I’ve done a lot of hard events even before the Olympics. The 400m IM is my main focus, I got sixth in Tokyo. That made me very confident for the future because I was only a few seconds from the best in the world. Going to the U.S. and training with Coach Bowman was a huge step for me. That’s what we do every day, we train hard to compete in those hard events. The 400 IM has been my favorite event, also the hardest but we’ve been working on it very hard. There have been different strategies that we’ve been adding during the years. At the beginning I was starting way too fast in fly before coming to the U.S. and Coach Bowman was telling me you gotta slow it down and just build it a little more. That’s a lot of the advice he has given me these past few years.”
On what it’ll take for him to move to the next level of himself:
“I think I'm trying to do the same as before on what's been working well for me. But I also need changes, try to improve maybe my, my walls, my breakouts, when I touched the wall for the 400 IM at World, I also thought about what can I improve? I know my coach did the same, and we know what can be better, what was good at the time but just keep changing. Keep improving on some strokes and trying to find a better way to swim it too There's no single perfect race, so I was just trying to get better and there's so many ways to get better in the 400 IM, it’s exciting.”
On balancing with college competition and preparing for the summer:
“Coach Bowman has been to the Olympics seven times already, so I think he knows how to handle that. It's all different this time because of course, we have another goal, which is the NCAA title that that we're trying to win. But he definitely has a lot of advice. He's very calm and he knows how to manage all of that. I just trust him, trust the process and trying to work harder and harder every day to get ready when I will be at NCAAs or in Paris. I wanna say it's the year when I'm having the most fun because there are many different goals and many different challenges. That's what I love, so it's been fun.”
On getting time to relax and ways he likes to unwind:
“I think all student-athletes have a pretty busy schedule. Just balancing between classes and being four hours in the water every day, it's pretty hard. Butt this year I have less classes, I wanted to have more time for myself for the Olympic year and what I do is I can't really do anything because I'm really tired all the time. But I usually just watch a show, listen to music, play video games and just hang out with my friends. But we don't have that much time honestly. We've been playing Call of Duty with the team, it's been pretty fun. I'm not that good, I'm gonna stick to swimming. I've been watching Peaky Blinders recently. It was pretty fun, but I'm trying to find a new one now.”
On different types of training:
“That's, that's something really different from when I was home. I think like Australia, we don't have that college season. So we used to have one true meet during the year, which was trials. Then you go straight to the national team. So you just basically just train for like three, four months really hard, have one meet and then go back to training again. Some people love that honestly, and some people do really well. I think for me it's better to have just small goals. Because after two weeks, I can just see what was wrong in my training and what was good. What can I improve on and all that stuff? It's just a quick response, and I think it's really fun to be part of the team and all of that. So for me, I think it was better to be in the NCAA season. Maybe in the future we'll see, but I know it's definitely something unique to the U.S.”
On how team dynamic has shaped him for postseason:
“I think the dynamic has been better every year since I came here. As a freshman, I didn't want to say anything because you're just following everyone and I was kind of lost myself. So, everyone was helping a lot and it was great but the dynamic has been way better in the past few months, I wanna say too, and people know what they want in the team. We are always together, we're all friends. We spend a lot of time together and I think we're ready. We've been ready since August. But we're having fun and there's a lot of support, like whenever someone is having a hard time, we always support them, trying to help them as much as we can. We have a lot of guys who have national team experience too and that helps a lot. We're having fun and just very excited for the future.”
Head coach Bob Bowman
On impact of Kyle Sockwell’s presence on swimming Twitter:
“He's doing a tremendous service for the sport online. He's heavily invested in college swimming and trying to promote it, follow it, get it to be more popular in the sort of mainstream, at least in the social media aspect. I definitely remember Kyle, he was one of my first teams here. He was on it and he had a very good year, swam personal best times at Pac-12s. He's a hard worker, loves swimming, and was enthusiastic about the things that we were doing. He was one of the first guys that helped us get things started. So we're very proud of him and all the things that he's doing right now to help the sport of swimming.”
On coaching different types of learners:
“Some people are auditory learners, they have to hear it. Some are visual, many are visual, and some are kinesthetic, they have to feel it. So you sort of get a feel for what that is and then also their communication style, how do they like to be spoken to? What kind of feedback do they like to get? What is the best for them? Sometimes I have to give them stuff they don't like to get, so you have to kind of understand that part. But, I think in general that's how I start.I wanna know them as a person, sort of what makes them tick, and then sort of tailor the feedback around that.”
On how he has seen Marchand grow in his time at Arizona State:
“He's kind of taken the journey that most kids do in college, right? When you're a freshman, you’re out on your own for the first time. Have some freedom, have a little bit of responsibility, not too much. So you balance that a little bit, you have to learn how to do things for yourself. He was pretty independent when he came, but each successive year it's been fun to see him grow as a man, as an athlete and he's very serious about the swimming. So that was never a problem, and he's learned how to manage the things away from the pool that everyone has to do when you go to college. So he's really had just sort of a natural progression, very much like the other guys on the team.”
On how he has developed his coaching over the years:
“I think that like anybody in any sort of pursuit when you start out, you have relatively few tools in your toolbox. When I first got started, my only tool was a hammer. So everything looked like a nail, right? I made people do stuff all the time because that's what good coaches did. They were tough and I still do that sometimes, but in general, I've tried to add to my toolbox and try to learn more about communication and learn more about how different athletes take and what works best with each one and tailor the coaching to them. I think that's the biggest change, also
I'm a lot more relaxed and not control freakish like I used to be. I learned over time that, you certain things are gonna happen, whether I worry about them or not one way or another, they're just gonna happen or not happen. And me being upset about them all the time is not really going to affect it except for negatively. So it took me quite a while to get that one.
So I am trying to now build an athlete who doesn't need me at all. That's my goal, my goal is to have these guys not depend on me. They should know that I'm there to support them, but they need to be able to stand on their own two feet, make some decisions, solve problems and be able to operate in the Olympic environment as an independent entity ready to go without me holding their hand. So I think that's a big way that I've improved or change.”’
On different types of training:
“I would speak to that and say that I know some of the Australian coaches and their program is fairly similar to mine, Michael Ball who trained some of those women. It's almost identical. He just came here and spent a couple of weeks, so we compare notes all the time. I do think their system is better suited for maybe longer careers because they don't have a college experience. So they can take their time. There's not this intense four-year period where they're doing all this racing, I do think that could be part of it. I do think that they are, it's a mixed bag on who trains a lot, and who trains less, just like here. I do think maybe the absence of the college program there prolongs their careers somewhat because they just don't have that real intense period.”
On what can go into the improvement of covering collegiate swimming:
“I think number one, swimming needs to do a better job presenting its competitions and that's something we're gonna start working very hard on here at ASU. We got some ideas about some things for next year to get more people to the events, and to make the events more user-friendly. Like right now we have a dual meet where we start off with a 200 medley relay, which lasts about a minute and 20 seconds. It's very exciting, and then we go into two or three heats of 1000 which is 10 minutes long. And frankly, even for me, who this is my life's work, it's pretty boring. Even if they're swimming fast, it's just this long thing. So we are trying to change the order of events, change the way that the events are presented, and have more things that are fan-friendly and more interactive. I think that's important and I think you're seeing some teams do that around the country already with some success. So I think we want people at ASU to fill these stands, we could have 2500 or 3000 people at every meet if it's something that they value coming to see, and it’s a lot of fun if it's just this thing where these people are going up and down a box of water forever and you don't really understand what's happening.
So, we're working on that and I do think that the more people understand the personalities of the sport like Léon or Lindsay, the more they'll be engaged into it as well and have something to follow or follow people to understand more what they're doing and why they're doing it.”
Senior swimmer Lindsay Looney
On how her growth will impact her going into later parts of the season:
“I think growth kind of came in a lot of different areas, not only personally but in the pool too. I feel like my freestyle has really developed over the years. My aerobic base has gotten really strong with Bob and kind of developing a really strong 500 (freestyle) even within just the past year. It has been one of my really exciting, strong suits that I can take into Pac-12s next week. Looking back to freshman year and starting in 2019, I feel like I was just this small little girl and I had so many different opportunities to look into I came in as a 400 IMer and a 200 IMer and 200 flier. We took that and changed directions a lot, so we started from something that was completely different than where I am now. I think that's the beauty of college swimming and learning from your coach and having a really good way of communicating with your coach and knowing and trusting the process too.”
On a challenge head coach Bob Bowman has had for her in her training:
“One of the challenges that I've learned is honestly what I need preparing for big competitions. I need very little taper. We joke with each other even the other day. He was like, ‘Well, your taper is gonna be on the flight there.’ It's always a learning curve with any athlete and coming to college, it opened my eyes to realize how well coaches have to know their athletes and develop different training plans because we all are all so different and need so many different things. He's had to create different training styles for me, for Léon, for everybody else on the team, preparing for these big competitions. So much goes into it and I think that's one thing that we've definitely discovered over the past few years together. That's something that I always have to trust and believe in him and know that he's doing the right thing for me and it's reciprocal and I know that whatever I'm doing I'm gonna put my head down and work hard for that. So that's one thing that we've definitely learned over the years together.”
On how he’s able to focus on one thing at a time:
“I think the NCAA system is good for that because we have one individual meet at a time. I think we’ve been doing pretty well and just focusing on each dual meet. We won every single one except the one at Cal, we tied but that was still a great one, too. Now I’ll focus on the next step which is Pac-12s in two weeks and then NCAA in one month. So that makes it it easier to focus on the next step. We’ve been practicing this a lot, so should be good.”
On his growth since competing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics:
“I’ve done a lot of hard events even before the Olympics. The 400m IM is my main focus, I got sixth in Tokyo. That made me very confident for the future because I was only a few seconds from the best in the world. Going to the U.S. and training with Coach Bowman was a huge step for me. That’s what we do every day, we train hard to compete in those hard events. The 400 IM has been my favorite event, also the hardest but we’ve been working on it very hard. There have been different strategies that we’ve been adding during the years. At the beginning I was starting way too fast in fly before coming to the U.S. and Coach Bowman was telling me you gotta slow it down and just build it a little more. That’s a lot of the advice he has given me these past few years.”
On what it’ll take for him to move to the next level of himself:
“I think I'm trying to do the same as before on what's been working well for me. But I also need changes, try to improve maybe my, my walls, my breakouts, when I touched the wall for the 400 IM at World, I also thought about what can I improve? I know my coach did the same, and we know what can be better, what was good at the time but just keep changing. Keep improving on some strokes and trying to find a better way to swim it too There's no single perfect race, so I was just trying to get better and there's so many ways to get better in the 400 IM, it’s exciting.”
On balancing with college competition and preparing for the summer:
“Coach Bowman has been to the Olympics seven times already, so I think he knows how to handle that. It's all different this time because of course, we have another goal, which is the NCAA title that that we're trying to win. But he definitely has a lot of advice. He's very calm and he knows how to manage all of that. I just trust him, trust the process and trying to work harder and harder every day to get ready when I will be at NCAAs or in Paris. I wanna say it's the year when I'm having the most fun because there are many different goals and many different challenges. That's what I love, so it's been fun.”
On getting time to relax and ways he likes to unwind:
“I think all student-athletes have a pretty busy schedule. Just balancing between classes and being four hours in the water every day, it's pretty hard. Butt this year I have less classes, I wanted to have more time for myself for the Olympic year and what I do is I can't really do anything because I'm really tired all the time. But I usually just watch a show, listen to music, play video games and just hang out with my friends. But we don't have that much time honestly. We've been playing Call of Duty with the team, it's been pretty fun. I'm not that good, I'm gonna stick to swimming. I've been watching Peaky Blinders recently. It was pretty fun, but I'm trying to find a new one now.”
On different types of training:
“That's, that's something really different from when I was home. I think like Australia, we don't have that college season. So we used to have one true meet during the year, which was trials. Then you go straight to the national team. So you just basically just train for like three, four months really hard, have one meet and then go back to training again. Some people love that honestly, and some people do really well. I think for me it's better to have just small goals. Because after two weeks, I can just see what was wrong in my training and what was good. What can I improve on and all that stuff? It's just a quick response, and I think it's really fun to be part of the team and all of that. So for me, I think it was better to be in the NCAA season. Maybe in the future we'll see, but I know it's definitely something unique to the U.S.”
On how team dynamic has shaped him for postseason:
“I think the dynamic has been better every year since I came here. As a freshman, I didn't want to say anything because you're just following everyone and I was kind of lost myself. So, everyone was helping a lot and it was great but the dynamic has been way better in the past few months, I wanna say too, and people know what they want in the team. We are always together, we're all friends. We spend a lot of time together and I think we're ready. We've been ready since August. But we're having fun and there's a lot of support, like whenever someone is having a hard time, we always support them, trying to help them as much as we can. We have a lot of guys who have national team experience too and that helps a lot. We're having fun and just very excited for the future.”
Head coach Bob Bowman
On impact of Kyle Sockwell’s presence on swimming Twitter:
“He's doing a tremendous service for the sport online. He's heavily invested in college swimming and trying to promote it, follow it, get it to be more popular in the sort of mainstream, at least in the social media aspect. I definitely remember Kyle, he was one of my first teams here. He was on it and he had a very good year, swam personal best times at Pac-12s. He's a hard worker, loves swimming, and was enthusiastic about the things that we were doing. He was one of the first guys that helped us get things started. So we're very proud of him and all the things that he's doing right now to help the sport of swimming.”
On coaching different types of learners:
“Some people are auditory learners, they have to hear it. Some are visual, many are visual, and some are kinesthetic, they have to feel it. So you sort of get a feel for what that is and then also their communication style, how do they like to be spoken to? What kind of feedback do they like to get? What is the best for them? Sometimes I have to give them stuff they don't like to get, so you have to kind of understand that part. But, I think in general that's how I start.I wanna know them as a person, sort of what makes them tick, and then sort of tailor the feedback around that.”
On how he has seen Marchand grow in his time at Arizona State:
“He's kind of taken the journey that most kids do in college, right? When you're a freshman, you’re out on your own for the first time. Have some freedom, have a little bit of responsibility, not too much. So you balance that a little bit, you have to learn how to do things for yourself. He was pretty independent when he came, but each successive year it's been fun to see him grow as a man, as an athlete and he's very serious about the swimming. So that was never a problem, and he's learned how to manage the things away from the pool that everyone has to do when you go to college. So he's really had just sort of a natural progression, very much like the other guys on the team.”
On how he has developed his coaching over the years:
“I think that like anybody in any sort of pursuit when you start out, you have relatively few tools in your toolbox. When I first got started, my only tool was a hammer. So everything looked like a nail, right? I made people do stuff all the time because that's what good coaches did. They were tough and I still do that sometimes, but in general, I've tried to add to my toolbox and try to learn more about communication and learn more about how different athletes take and what works best with each one and tailor the coaching to them. I think that's the biggest change, also
I'm a lot more relaxed and not control freakish like I used to be. I learned over time that, you certain things are gonna happen, whether I worry about them or not one way or another, they're just gonna happen or not happen. And me being upset about them all the time is not really going to affect it except for negatively. So it took me quite a while to get that one.
So I am trying to now build an athlete who doesn't need me at all. That's my goal, my goal is to have these guys not depend on me. They should know that I'm there to support them, but they need to be able to stand on their own two feet, make some decisions, solve problems and be able to operate in the Olympic environment as an independent entity ready to go without me holding their hand. So I think that's a big way that I've improved or change.”’
On different types of training:
“I would speak to that and say that I know some of the Australian coaches and their program is fairly similar to mine, Michael Ball who trained some of those women. It's almost identical. He just came here and spent a couple of weeks, so we compare notes all the time. I do think their system is better suited for maybe longer careers because they don't have a college experience. So they can take their time. There's not this intense four-year period where they're doing all this racing, I do think that could be part of it. I do think that they are, it's a mixed bag on who trains a lot, and who trains less, just like here. I do think maybe the absence of the college program there prolongs their careers somewhat because they just don't have that real intense period.”
On what can go into the improvement of covering collegiate swimming:
“I think number one, swimming needs to do a better job presenting its competitions and that's something we're gonna start working very hard on here at ASU. We got some ideas about some things for next year to get more people to the events, and to make the events more user-friendly. Like right now we have a dual meet where we start off with a 200 medley relay, which lasts about a minute and 20 seconds. It's very exciting, and then we go into two or three heats of 1000 which is 10 minutes long. And frankly, even for me, who this is my life's work, it's pretty boring. Even if they're swimming fast, it's just this long thing. So we are trying to change the order of events, change the way that the events are presented, and have more things that are fan-friendly and more interactive. I think that's important and I think you're seeing some teams do that around the country already with some success. So I think we want people at ASU to fill these stands, we could have 2500 or 3000 people at every meet if it's something that they value coming to see, and it’s a lot of fun if it's just this thing where these people are going up and down a box of water forever and you don't really understand what's happening.
So, we're working on that and I do think that the more people understand the personalities of the sport like Léon or Lindsay, the more they'll be engaged into it as well and have something to follow or follow people to understand more what they're doing and why they're doing it.”
Senior swimmer Lindsay Looney
On how her growth will impact her going into later parts of the season:
“I think growth kind of came in a lot of different areas, not only personally but in the pool too. I feel like my freestyle has really developed over the years. My aerobic base has gotten really strong with Bob and kind of developing a really strong 500 (freestyle) even within just the past year. It has been one of my really exciting, strong suits that I can take into Pac-12s next week. Looking back to freshman year and starting in 2019, I feel like I was just this small little girl and I had so many different opportunities to look into I came in as a 400 IMer and a 200 IMer and 200 flier. We took that and changed directions a lot, so we started from something that was completely different than where I am now. I think that's the beauty of college swimming and learning from your coach and having a really good way of communicating with your coach and knowing and trusting the process too.”
On a challenge head coach Bob Bowman has had for her in her training:
“One of the challenges that I've learned is honestly what I need preparing for big competitions. I need very little taper. We joke with each other even the other day. He was like, ‘Well, your taper is gonna be on the flight there.’ It's always a learning curve with any athlete and coming to college, it opened my eyes to realize how well coaches have to know their athletes and develop different training plans because we all are all so different and need so many different things. He's had to create different training styles for me, for Léon, for everybody else on the team, preparing for these big competitions. So much goes into it and I think that's one thing that we've definitely discovered over the past few years together. That's something that I always have to trust and believe in him and know that he's doing the right thing for me and it's reciprocal and I know that whatever I'm doing I'm gonna put my head down and work hard for that. So that's one thing that we've definitely learned over the years together.”