Hello From Chilly Moscow!
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 2:32PM 
Hi to all of my LFSC teammates! I'm writing from Moscow where I am managing the US National Youth Team at one ot the FINA World Cup meets. These meets are designed to bring the top swimmers from throughout the world together for some pretty serious racing. Our team includes Michael Phelps and Missy Franklin, two names you might know. There are a total of 10 swimmers and 7 support staff, including a doctor.
You're probably wondering what I do. It's really a lot of the same stuff I do with LFSC but the pressure and intensity of everything is much greater. Before the team travels I help make all of the travel, meal and hotel plans, I have to call foreign governments and the US Embassy to let them know an American sports team is in town, and plan all of the activities and movements of the team. I wake up very early each day and pack all of the team equipment for the day and get to bed very late each night after finals.
During the meet I have to know where every swimmer is at all times so they don't miss an event or their award. That may sound easy but there are 3 warm-up pools here in Moscow! I also have to know all of the doping control (drug testing) rules and be sure that our swimmers are notified and protected if they are picked to do a drug test. I wear a backpack with suit/cap/goggles for every swimmer, in case their equipment breaks right before they race and carry Power Bars and water to aid recovery after a race. The stakes are pretty high at the top of all international sports and making a mistake like missing an event or a drug test has an equally severe penalty.
The man in the photo with me is Alexander Popov, the great Russian sprinter. Alex is considered by many to have been the greatest frestyle swimmer of all time. He won the 50 and 100 free at the Barcelona (1992) and Atlanta (1996) Olympics. At the Sydney (2000) games he was 2nd in the 100 free. He set a world record in the 50 free in the same pool we are using for this meet, the 1980 Moscow Olympic pool. If you want to watch his world record swim click here.
Tomorrow we head to Berlin for another meet then back to the states. I hope you are all training hard and working to perfect all of the little things that make a good swimmer great. Every champion, even the great Michael Phelps and Alexander Popov, started as a little kid who didn't know how to swim. It takes a long time to develop the skills, fitness and toughness of a champion and maybe you can one day make an Olympic dream come true.
The most important thing I have learned from my many trips to competitions like this is that athletes who believe in their dreams and work to make them really never lose. They don't always win Gold, but they never lose.
Think about that for a while then Dream A Big Dream. I'd love to see you here one day.
Copyright, 2010, Michael Lawrence. All rights reserved. No republication permitted without the express prior consent of the owner.