According to the Brazilian swim blog Blog do Coach, Thiago Pereira has left the Trojan Swim Club at USC and has returned home to Brazil to train with Cesar Cielo’s PRO16 training group in Sao Paulo. The story goes that he sold his Porsche to Ous Mellouli, packed his bags, and headed back home for good.
This PRO16 group is led by longtime Cielo mentor Alberto Pinto. This could be a good move for him – as some Brazilian fans have observed, the Brazilian freestyle relay is always one leg short of being medalists. Some believe that Pereira, generally a middle-distance swimmer, might be the 4th-leg that they need, and training with Cielo can’t hurt his chances at a solid 100 free time.
Pereira’s time with the Trojans didn’t end well competitively. He struggled at the World Championships and didn’t put up a season-best in the 200 IM, swam some disappointing relay legs, and scratched the 400 IM altogether. At the Pan Am Games, he won a lot of medals (6 golds to be exact), but there too his times were not up to his historical standards.
One side note:
Brazil relays is no only a leg short in 4×100 free.Its in medley(backstroke) too.He made 54.4 before shave to swim his IM events at worlds.I think is more likely to him swim 53 mid in 100 back than be a consistent 48something in 100 free.
And there s somehing scary about Brazil Medley relay: Cielo always swim 100fly leg in Brazil Champs(defending flamengo), and always make times between 51.3 and 51.6, when he is doing only 49 low in 100 free.Everyone talks how far can he go in a full taper?