Cameron McEvoy wins Australian Open Championship 50m butterfly with low-distance training regime
Cameron McEvoy has made his name as something of an innovator in recent years.
The 30-year-old has turned conventional swimming wisdom on its head by forgoing lengthy sessions in the pool in exchange for a more targeted training plan in the gym.
Heading into the Australian Open Championships in Brisbane this week,
"I only got back in the water three weeks ago after being pretty much gym-only for a long time," McEvoy told ABC Sport after his victory on Easter Monday.
"Today was the third time I've swum a full 50 since Paris.
"So yeah, it feels weird being back."
Given the timing of the meet, six weeks out from the World Championships Trials, fast times are not necessarily expected.
But McEvoy is anything but conventional.
He came desperately close to a personal best in the morning's heats with a 23.09 — just 0.02 seconds off the time he set at the 2023 Australian Trials.
That was not fast enough to be the quickest qualifier.
That honour went to Italian Thomas Ceccon, who swam an all-comers record 23.00, even if he wasn't super pleased with the time.
Thomas Ceccon set a new all-comers record in the 50m butterfly in the heats.
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Getty Images: Chris Hyde
)
"23.00 is alright, maybe it would be better [to do] 22," the Italian told ABC Sport.
The 24-year-old, who was the 2023 world champion in the 50 butterfly and won Olympic gold in the 100 backstroke in Paris, withdrew from the final to focus on the 200m backstroke, a decision that clearly paid off when he swam an Italian record 1:55.71 to claim victory.
In the absence of Ceccon in the final, McEvoy, a bronze medallist in the 50 fly in the World Championships in 2024 in Doha, swam 23.18 to claim gold.
"I gave it a crack, I almost got it back, I was, what, 0.09 behind him," McEvoy asked of his time compared to Ceccon.
"But he's 2023 world champ in this event and like ninth best ever in history in terms of top 10 rankings.
"So he's a good guy to compare myself to with this event, especially with LA coming up."
Looking forward
In keeping with McEvoy's affectionate sobriquet "the professor", he will turn his forensic eye to his race with an eye to improve ahead of the world trials.
"I'm trying a new approach again this season," McEvoy said.
"Same underlying stuff, just done in a different way.
"We'll analyse the whole 50 … like anything you can analyse.
"I'll just be taking that with me, seeing where I'm at and then that'll kind of guide me as to what to do between now and world champs trials [in Adelaide in June]."
Cameron McEvoy was a comfortable winner in the 50m fly.
(
Supplied: Swimming Australia/Delly Carr
)
Such has been his success, it seems that plenty of other people have also fixed their gaze on the Brisbane-based sprinter's methodology.
"All of a sudden pure, 50, specialist training is now in hot demand, whereas before it was kind of, I guess, looked down upon a little bit," McEvoy said.
"So it's nice that that's back.
"The amount of people like retired swimmers, or swammers, who have heard this and said, 'I don't even care if I'm this age or whatever, I'm gonna come back, give it a shot'.
He said it would rejuvenate the sport.
"It's gonna not only make the 50s faster, but everyone trying to get better in the 50 is gonna make their 100 quicker," he said.
"So it's gonna have a snowball effect throughout the sprint world and the 50s and 100s.
"I can't fault it. There's no negative reason to think that it's bad for anyone."
Sprint focus
Another person who agreed with that sentiment was British breaststroke legend Adam Peaty, who confirmed he would stay in the sport for another cycle after the announcement that he would be able to compete in the 50 in LA.
Adam Peaty won 100m breaststroke silver at the Paris Olympics.
(
Getty Images: Quinn Rooney
)
"I watched the press conference and thought, 'This is going to change the sport for everyone'," Peaty told BBC Sport.
"Swimming is one of those sports where it is incredibly demanding.
"You are doing 4,000 to 5,000m in the morning, doing a whole day of work or school then 4,000m at night.
"Sprinting is a little bit different because you don't have to commit to the metres as much.
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"You still have to put the time in, it is going to be difficult like anything, but it is going to give longevity to those athletes that have been doing that for a long time, are getting tired of the sport and can train a bit differently."
As something of a pioneer for modern era short-distance specialist sprint training, McEvoy said he still fielded hundreds of messages from all over the world about his techniques.
He said about five a day came on Instagram alone.
"More since the announcement, but still, even before that, it was a lot," he said.
"And we've seen a few other people independently have kind of taken inspiration from it and created their own program."
The low-metres approach to training is not necessarily new — British former short course record holder Mark Foster was experimenting with different training styles through the 1990s.
But with McEvoy repopularising it, the new wave of swimmers experimenting are producing results that speak for themselves.
"Some of the results coming out are insane," McEvoy said.
"There's a British guy [Rob Shaw], his 50 fly PB was from 2007, he's had testicular cancer twice, he's overcome it, last time was in 2023, he's come back training three times a week and he just did a lifetime best and made the B final at the British Nationals.
"It's unreal."
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