Olympic gold medallist swimmer Jason Lezak might look like a Greek god – he’s 6 feet 4 inches tall, all muscle, and has an aura of goodness that seems to touch all those around him – however, one thing makes him even better – he’s Jewish!
Besides winning Olympic gold, he has been world champion nine times and U.S. national champion eight time.
Lezak
may be a team player, but he practices alone. He started training on
his own two years ago, when his longtime coach left to take a position
at the University of Southern California.
“I was at a point in my career where I knew what I needed to do to coach myself,” Lezak said. “But that does not mean just going to the pool.”
Lezak trains using a specific workout plan. “Most people train nine times a week in the pool, but I think they do “garbage yardage,” he said, meaning that with the aim of swimming 6,000 metres, they “throw in a bunch of crap.”
He is a firm believer in quality, not quantity. “You’ve got to make every stroke count,” Lezak said.
It’s not about having a coach poolside to motivate him, either. “I swim because I have goals, not because anyone is telling me,” he said.
He is as strong in mind and as in body, and that was evident in the Beijing Olympic Games last summer.
Lezak was one of the swimmers in the four by 100 medley relay. In this race, four swimmers completed two lengths of the pool, each using a different stroke. The first on each team used the backstroke, the second the breaststroke, the third the butterfly stroke and the final swimmer used freestyle. The first swimmer must touch the wall before the next can leave the starting block and so forth.
The United States won this race 13 consecutive times, until 2000 and 2004 when it started coming in second. This year, the French were favoured to win, and they were having a field day trash-talking the Americans. It was a race the Americans needed to win. With the team’s win, Michael Phelps earned his eighth gold medal at the Games.
Lezak was the team’s anchor, and when it was his turn to swim, the Americans, as predicted, were placing second. “In the lead up to my race, we were behind, and [I] knew I had to get off the block as fast as I could,” he said. “I thought I false-started and spent the next five seconds thinking I disqualified Team U.S.A.”
The average person might have given up at that point. Lezak smiled as he said, “I refocused and kept going. When I got to the 50 wall [an Olympic- size swimming pool is 50 metres long], I saw the French swimmer had pulled away and I thought there was no way I could catch up.”
Athletes don’t make it to the Olympics by giving up, and Lezak was in no mood to come in second place.
“It’s all about the power of the mind. I blocked it out, felt strong and good – it was the Olympic Games,” he said.
“I was breathing to the right side, so every time I took a breath I could see where he was in the water. When I got to the 85-metre mark, typically the body shuts down, but I had an extra surge of adrenaline. I’ve looked at the replays – I did not go faster, but he tightened up and faded, dying like a dog.”
Lezak broke a world record, stunning even the announcers as he overtook the French swimmer who was a full body length ahead of him and clinched the gold medal for Team U.S.A.
When he looked up to see who won, he was “in shock, exhausted, could hardly walk, but I had all the excitement inside. All those years of swimming – [I] felt like it all paid off.”
So if you are wondering what it is like to swim with an Olympic gold medallist, I was, too. I’m a recreational swimmer, so after our interview, I had a swim lesson. Talk about turning the tables. As a journalist, I am usually the one in control, the one trying to figure out the story. So having Lezak analyze my swimming, as nice as he is, was completely intimidating, but his advice worked, and I shaved a second off my times.
I also spent some time underwater watching Lezak swim; he was like a knife cutting through butter. The way he moves through the water is absolutely beautiful.
Practice does make perfect, and I was curious about his enormous drive and energy. Lezak explained, “I am motivated by myself, but there has to be a goal, a reason to achieve certain things. Truthfully, not having won some of the races I wanted to makes me hungrier.”
He talked about positive thinking, goals, and a workout plan, but I still wondered, is it easy to stay motivated swimming alone?
“I’ve been successful because I’m good at being in charge of myself and now I’ve proved it… I stick to my routine, swimming only five days a week.”
Where does Lezak go from here? Well, he’s not telling, but he is still training. He’s never been to Israel and is looking for a sponsor, as he’d like to be able to spend time there, but he can’t attend the Maccabi Games this July, as they conflict with another race.
Don’t be surprised if he graces your television screens once again in 2012.
Next time you need a little motivation to work out think of Lezak – after all, practice, perseverance and positive thinking can turn silver into gold.
