Sam Short won a medal of every color at the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka, earning gold in the 400 free, silver in the 800 free, and bronze in the 1500 free. SwimSwam sat down with the distance ace to discuss his meet and season.
- 0:00 Sam Short Introduction
- 0:53 Overall Thoughts on World Champs
- 2:35 Preparing for a Heavy Distance Program
- 3:45 400 Free Strategy
- 5:30 Taking the 400 Out in 1:49
- 9:52 First World Title
- 11:30 Fastest 800 Free Final Ever
- 15:12 800 Free World Record
- 17:07 1500 Free Strategy
- 22:30 Takeaways from Fukuoka
- 23:51 Training at Rackley
- 25:00 Double-Distance Taper
- 28:12 Why Rackley?
- 30:46 Why Distance Swimming?
- 32:55 Managing Training for 400-800-1500
- 35:46 200 Free
- 36:50 Typical Training Week
Oh, look, yet ANOTHER distance double. Sorry, triple.
Ask when we’ll accept that the 800 and 1500 are the two most redundant events in all of sports, and get the 800 out of the Olympics.
Cannot wait to listen to this, thanks!
swimswam interview one american (or just non-australian!) challenge
I’d rather Swimswam interview swimmers who give interesting insights, talk openly, regardless of NATIONALITY.
They’ve interviewed all individual gold medallists so far. Doesn’t leave too many non-Australian options for them lol.
Steve…I think you’re being funny, but we interview all athletes from around the world. Our international audience increases year over year. It’s important to note we interview athletes who respond and show up, and Team Australia and Team GB are very professional and prompt with media.
Mel, if you were looking to interview athletes from Canada such as Maggie, Summer or Josh for instance do you have to get permission from Team Canada or can the individual athlete make the decision on their own?
What if instead those athletes decided to just never respond to the media, and waited to let the Olympic Machine do all their publicity for them every four years??
Just something to think about, clearly could be a better way.
Did anybody else read the title and think “O some guy named Sam was short on the amount of distance training he’s done this year” or is that just my 2:45 work fog brain kicking in…
If it wasn’t for the photo, yes I probably would have thought the same.
Did you not follow just concluded World Championship?
Was literally in 2:45PM work fog mode…needed a 2 minute break and it was only for a moment…Jesus
So he won’t swim the relay next year. Australia could have used him in the 4×200, I‘m sure he could drop a flying 1:44.
The 4×2 final isn’t long after the 800 final which is enormously stupid!
Is it though? How many relevant athletes would be in both of those events?
People who swam both the 800 free and 200 free (either relay or individual) in Fukuoka:
-Martens, Costa, Woo-min, de Tullio, Winnington, (Short previously but not in Fukuoka), Pallister, Titmus, Ledecky, Fairweather, Bingjie, Thomas, Yang, Gose, Kesely. And that’s just what I found from a quick check, not a complete list.
Seems like a pretty common crossover. Whereas they moved the 1500 away from the 200 because literally like 2 people do both
Lots of other swimmers have done both at some point in time including some very big names like Sun Yang, Thorpe and Hackett.
Laughs in LEDECKY and co
What’s stupid is even having the 800 in the WC and the OG. It is completely redundant to the 1500, and this is shown by IMMENSE number of athletes doubling in wins/medals and WRs between the 800/1500 over the years.
No other two events are like this, and here we are talking about the pointless 800 crowding the schedule. Ha!
Humble champion! So young seeming. You astonished us in Japan, Sam…
Its so crazy to see all then new future big names start to emerge, i still remember when the name Michael phelps was unrecognizable. The future of swimming is just incredibly fast.
That is because he was like 13 lol
Great interview. To see his perspective on those men’s distance free races was awesome.