In case you want to know what Nathan Adrian said during his
post-race interview with the media contingent, and believe you me,
it’s a packed house in that media room,
check out this link here. Here is the
video link as well.
Or, just go ahead and read below… Enjoy it Bremerton. This is a
fun ride.
U.S. Olympic Swim Trials Media Conference
Thursday, June 30 2016
Nathan Adrian
THE MODERATOR: Thank you for joining, Nathan Adrian, defending
Olympic Champion in this event, 100 Meter Freestyle tonight. He
punched his ticket to Rio. So Nathan, go ahead. You had to sit
around before tonight, your first final, so tell us how it feels to
have that behind you.
NATHAN ADRIAN: Feels good! I think we were faster than we were
certainly four years ago, so that feels good, but the world is also
faster, so there’s that to keep in mind, but just to be able to pop
a 47 right now, knowing that if we can hopefully be a little bit
faster in about a month is good.
Q. Nathan, obviously some of your peers have
changed coaches, moved, had life changes. Yours seems like it was
pretty steady and consistent, the same as it was in the lead-up to
’12; is that true?
NATHAN ADRIAN: Yes and no. I credit Dave for, you know, being just
— using his knowledge, and we all know that Dave is and has been a
very, very successful collegiate coach and being a little bit
malleable to coaching a little bit older athletes, and it’s a
little bit different. The physiology is a little bit different. I
don’t know why, but at this point I find at this point it’s super
easy to grain strength in the weight room, and it’s a lot harder to
do the yards in the pool; whereas, when I was younger it was the
opposite way. I was struggling to put on some muscle, and I could
just crush it every day in the pool.
So with that in mind we just kind of shift our emphasis a little
bit and made sure that we were doing the proper recovery we needed
to do to be fast in the pool.
Q. This is a message for Cameron McEvoy. What do
you think about — for the Olympic Games?
NATHAN ADRIAN: What do I think about his time or — yeah, he’s good!
Just as James was good four years ago! I just look forward to
racing him. I think he’s an incredible racer and, you know, there
is nothing more fun than getting the best guys in the world
together in the same pool and just seeing what happens.
Q. Nathan, you smile more than most sprinters do.
A lot of sprinters at all levels have an intense personality, some
of them have a scowl or intense look. Talk just a little bit about
your personality in that realm of sprinters and how you turn on the
intensity when you hit the water.
NATHAN ADRIAN: I guess it is in my nature to be a little — just
approach things with a smile; I think it’s easier that way. You
know there are certainly days when I’m not smiling under the water
when we’re grinding it out a little bit, but you guys don’t see
that.
It just kind of sounds cliche in that racing is the most fun
thing, but it is, man! That’s one of the tricks that Dave uses to
keep training fun for us is that we get to race in practice every
day, because if not, I would be long gone. I couldn’t do it.
Q. Nathan, there was a time when you were not
smiling a lot. I think that’s back in your distance days with Jay
Benner. How did that work that you did with him back then prepare
you for your days at Cal, as you move forward to be one of the
premiere sprinters in the world?
NATHAN ADRIAN: You know, I think — I don’t have any sort of
education in physiology, so I couldn’t give you a specific reason
why doing a ton of aerobic training at the Trials and all that
stuff, you know, benefited me now moving toward an anaerobics type
of event. But I can say that Jay did an amazing job of instilling a
work ethic in me and really teaching, you know, swimming — I think
swimming as a sport but Jay specifically taught me ownership over
swimming and that what I put in is what I’m going to get out. I
think that’s one of the reasons why swimming is such a popular
sport today.
Q. You were talking in the Mixed Zone about
motivation and day-to-day and how your friends have jobs in the
real world. Can you elaborate on that a little bit and how you do
push yourself day-to-day as a pro, and it’s kind of a different
lifestyle.
NATHAN ADRIAN: Yeah, sure. So one example is that, you know, we
spend a lot of down time at these meets, like Scott said, I’m stuck
sittin’ in the hotel room for a long time watching the races,
getting excited, eating my sandwiches in bed and sending a
Snapchat, for instance, of me trying to throw my sandwich wrapper
into a trash can. I sent that to a bunch of my friends, and they
were like, oh dude, I think that’s one of my chairs! They’re chair
salesman, and that was the exciting part of their day!
I’m happy for them, and they’re my best friends, but I get to
race, and I get to sit here in front of you guys and, you know,
have dreams about trying to win Olympic Gold. That’s what keeps me
motivated and, again, swimming is such an objective sport and the
glass ceiling is — has not been reached, so it’s exciting to try to
push yourself and kind of you alluded to earlier, how do we change
things? I’m excited to be on a team with David Plummer, a guy — I’m
sorry, is he 31, 32? He’s older than I am, and he keeps improving,
and that’s awesome.
I want to talk to him, I want to be like, hey, dude, what are
you doing? This is great. Let’s see what things you’re doing that
you feel like has made you improve and how can I incorporate that
into what I’m doing.
Q. Nathan, how hard is it to stay on top?
NATHAN ADRIAN: I don’t know, I mean, I haven’t — it’s pretty hard!
No one has gone back-to-back in major international competitions in
the 100 for a while now; right? I was 2012, James was ’13, Cam was
’14, the Chinese guy was ’15. It’s not easy, and going back before
that, I guess James was ’11, I was ’10, go me! ‘9, Kaiser, and ‘8
was Bernard, or Eamon? It’s crazy, right? There is a lot of
turnover, so I think that’s what makes it so exciting.
Q. Nathan, not to belabor this, and I hope I
don’t get too personal but back to the chair salesmen, obviously
there are a lot of people who are jealous of your life and look at
your life and go, wow, that would be the coolest thing ever to do
what he’s doing, but is there anything about your friends’ lives
that you look at sometimes, you’re 27 now and go, that’s something
that I would like to have?
NATHAN ADRIAN: Job security! (Laughter.) You know, I mean, that’s
certainly — 401(k), those kinds of things. You know, there are pros
and cons to everything, but that’s the way it goes. I think
swimming truly has taught me a lot of life skills that will
translate eventually one day well into the work force, and we’ll
figure that out when we get there.
Yeah, those guys have a good time, but it is hilarious, but I
was just like — I sent them a Snapchat of me trying to make a thing
and they were like, dude, check if that’s our chair or not! And I’m
like, whatever!
Q. So there’s been a lot of pessimism about the
American you 400 Free Relay over the past four years. Obviously
what happened in Kazan last year a good example of that, but
tonight really some good times. Do you think you proved some
things? The other thing, slightly unrelated, what do you think
about Josh, since you train with him. Can you comment on
that?
NATHAN ADRIAN: To say I’m proud of Josh would be belittling to him,
but I’m proud of being a product of the same system that Josh came
from. I mean, he swam that race so incredibly smart, and that was
just so cool to watch. He was behind by a good margin the first 25,
first 50, and I was right next to Murph, who is already on the
team, and by the third 50, sorry, by about the 150 we were like,
dude, Josh has got it, he might set that world record.
We both knew that he swam an incredibly smart race that he was
ready to go and he was going to drop the hammer on that last 50,
and I’m just proud to be from the same program of a guy who swims
so smart like that.
Knock on wood, hopefully tomorrow I’m going to have those same
feelings after the 200 Backstroke. 400 Freestyle Relay, man, I said
it last year, I think people are going to underestimate what the
Americans are capable of. I certainly don’t think that, you know,
47.7, 48.2, 48.2 and I think Tony had a 48.5, I don’t think that’s
the best we have to offer. I think the next month we will be
sharpening our tools, and I think that we have the arsenal to be
competitive for medals there.
That’s just so exciting. People wanted to count us out for it,
but I think I knew better, that we were going to be good.
THE MODERATOR: Thanks, everybody.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
Rev #2 by #315 at 2016-07-01 03:07:00 GMT
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