National squad members Brad York, Craig Watson and Ryan Smith take a well-earned break during one of the testing sessions in the pool in the Casey Tiger Sharks’ third annual Hell Week.By Marc McGowan
THE Casey Tiger Sharks are winding up for another successful season after surviving their toughest seven days on the calendar last week.
The aptly named Hell Week, which is in its third year, began for the Tiger Sharks’ national and state squad members on Monday last week before wrapping up on Sunday. National squad participants endured a ‘hellish’ 75-kilometre schedule that included two three-hour sessions a day in the pool, while their state squad team-mates negotiated ‘only’ 50km in the same time period.
Each swimmer entered the challenging week with one mantra in mind if they were able to complete it – “the inner knowledge that their bodies can go beyond their previous expectations”.
If the swimming was not hard enough, on the final day head coach Ben Hiddlestone greeted his charges with a gruelling two-hour rock climbing test before yet another dip in the pool in the afternoon.
Of the 45 swimmers that took part, it was 11-year-old Olivia Raiti who made the biggest impression on Hiddlestone.
“I had them do fifteen 100s all flat out and they started pretty strong and in the last five she was keeping up only two seconds behind our best girls, Katie York and Jemma Phillips,” he said. “Olivia is literally a midget, so I don’t know how she did it – she was outstanding.”
Hiddlestone is a massive fan of the format of Hell Week, which harks back to the techniques of yesteryear.
“This is good, old school kind of stuff from back in the day when (former champion swimming coach) Laurie Lawrence was serving up tough hard sets and only the strongest and fittest survived,” he said. “It is good for them to understand that they are capable of that.”
For 13 of the Tiger Sharks, it has been a brutal preparation for the Victorian Open Short Course Championships on 28 and 29 July.
“There is only one type of confidence. You can tell kids they’re great, they’re fantastic, that they’ll race well; you can tell them all that type of stuff, but it’s all fake,” Hiddlestone said.
“Knowing they’ve done more work or better work or harder work than anyone else they’re racing against is real confidence.”
The Casey Tiger Sharks competing at the Victorian Open Short Course Championships are Brad York, Trent Lindsey, Kirra Minton, Katie York, Jemma Phillips, Eric Lopez, Craig Watson, Luke Drakeford, Diane Etiennette, Ryan Smith, Chloe Butt, Lance Durscher and Cameron Hill.
