Windmill Revolution

Swimming Technique, Jul-Sep 2004 by Volckening, Bill

Comparing Notes

Although McAllister wouldn't have classified himself as a straight-arm freestyle coach, he did coach Japan's Suzu Chiba-one of the few others known to swim suc-cessfully with a straight-arm recovery. McAllister offered some enlightening comparisons between Evans and Chiba:

"Both swimmers had very relaxed recovery motions," said McAllister. "Just as a swimmer with a high elbow is usually very relaxed during the recovery, they both had this quality-and they had it despite having stroke rates above 50!

"Both swimmers had great hand speed/acceleration at the finish of their underwater stroke (similar to that of a butterfly swimmer), with the "snap" at the finish of the stroke. Both had excellent hip rotation, particularly as their hand exited the water. This quality gave them more force/power at the finish of their stroke."

However, since Evans was a distance swimmer and Chiba was more of a sprinter/middle-distance swimmer, the straight-arm recovery worked differently with each swimmer's strengths and weaknesses-particularly the kick. Evans had an unbelievable pull but "a relatively weak kick," according to McAllister. "Suzu had a tremendous, six-beat kick."

Next Generation Sprinters

In 1992, Chinese sprinters Wang Yenyi and Zhuang Yong rose to the top of the international rankings and won Olympic gold by swimming straight-arm freestyle. Unfortunately, allegations of illegal performance-enhancing substances being used in China caused their technique to be largely unnoticed.

In fact, few people really took notice of the use of straight-arm recovery by sprinters until six years later when Australian Michael Klim took the swimming world by Storni at the 1998 World Championships in Perth. According to Hall of Fame coach Paul Bergen, Klim's technique was definitely worthy of attention.

"I noticed something unusual about his stroke," said Bergen, who currently coaches Olympic gold medalist Inge "Inky" De Bruijn of the Netherlands at the Tualatin Hills Swim Club in Oregon. "I talked a little with Klim's coach, Gennadi Touretski, about what he was doing with Klim. Coach Touretski was getting a lot of his ideas about training tempo from rowers, which was quite a different approach compared to what he had done with Popov."

At the time, Bergen was looking for new ways to combine increased kick (in the last half of the 100) without sacrificing arm tempo. "In the classic bent-arm freestyle," said Bergen, "when kids would pick up their kick tempo, their arm tempo would slow down. It's like their stroke would get longer. What I noticed with Klim was that when he picked up his kick, his arm tempo appeared to increase. So I thought, maybe this approach is something we should look into."

Tinkering With Success

Coach Bergen admits he was "taken aback" when he first saw Evans doing windmill freestyle back in the '80s.

"She had incredible speed, tremendous turnover and very even tempo." As impressed as he was, Bergen saw her stroke as "something that fit her specifically." In trying to contextualize Evans' stroke, Bergen recalled another great distance swimmer from the late '70s, Australian Tracey Wickham.