Chris makes world championship squad

SHANNON’S Chris Bryan is heading for next month’s FINA Swimming World Championships in Barcelona, having been named as one of just four members of the Irish team.

 

He will swim in the 10k open water event on July 22 and has shown good form so far this season, having won the Portuguese Open Water Championships earlier this month.
The 23-year-old narrowly missed out on last year’s Olympics, having suffered shingles in the run-up to a qualifying event. Despite that, he still came within a whisker of qualifying, only losing out in a photo finish.

Speaking to The Clare Champion on Wednesday, he had felt he had been in with a great chance of going to Spain. “I had a World Cup event at the start of the year and I came ninth in that from a top-class field, which was a great result. Then I swam in Portugal and I won by quite a distance so I knew I was in real good form.”

He is training at the University of Limerick and is just about to graduate. “I just finished my sports science degree, I had taken a year out last year to train for the Olympics and I went back this year to finish it.”

Chris is training full-time at the High Performance Centre at the university and has a very demanding schedule. “In the morning I’m on deck at five o’clock and in the water at about 5.20. I could be in the water till 7.30-8am. I go back and eat and go back to bed. I get up and stretch for about an hour and would be back at the pool at about half-two and I’m in the water from three till five or half five and I stretch after the session and do stability work or injury prevention until six or half six. I go home and have dinner and relax and go to be about half nine or 10 o’clock.

“We have Sundays off and we do 10 to 11 sessions, that’s twice every day with Wednesday evening off and Saturday evening can change depending on the week.”
While swimming might seem like a rather lonely sport, he says there is quite a bit of camaraderie. “I’d always emphasise that if I was getting up every morning by myself and if I was the only person in the pool at that time of the morning it’d be 100 times harder. We have a squad of about 13 at the moment with a variety of ages from 14 up to myself and with a few on the team there’s a better atmosphere. It’s great to work with highly motivated individuals, we all have our individual goals and we support each other and work as a team.”

He is targeting a top-eight finish in Barcelona but has another big commitment on July 17, just five days earlier.

“The World Student Games is on in Kuzhan in Russia as well. The venue is where the World Championships is going to be in 2015. I can qualify for the Olympics if I finish top 10 in the world championships there.
“It’s an opportunity for me to get familiar with the course because there won’t be another race in Russia to prepare before the world championships.”

He doesn’t feel the event in Russia will hamper him at all and that race practice is crucial for the event.
“It’s so important, especially in open water. It’s very hard to simulate it in training, even when I go to the open water by myself.

“The biggest problem in open water is swimming in the pack, the tactics of when to make a move, the rough and tumble. Race practice is indispensable really.”