Sarah Sjostrom wants to focus on 50 m sprints to prolong her career!
- Swedish swimmer, Sarah Sjostrom has been in more than 12 years in the sports of swimming.
- She is an Olympic 100 fly champion but now she wants to focus on 50 m sprints.
- This is because she feels that it will prolong her career.
Sarah Sjostrom and her career
Swedish swimmer Sarah Sjostrom is a highly talented swimmer. She first got international fame in the year 2008. This was at the European Championships in the Netherlands in Eindhoven.
Sarah won at this event the 100m butterfly. At the age of 14, she won a bronze medal in the 4x100m free. This was the start of the medal series. She was at the Olympics on three occasions.
In 2016, she won the 100 flies at Rio. Soon, she was in the top position because she won 8 World and 14 European titles. And Sarah wants to prolong her stay in her sports and career.
So how is she going to ensure that?
Sarah Sjostrom and her mode to prolong her career
The swimmer will be 27 years old when she competes at the Tokyo Olympics next year. The game was to be held this year but due to the coronavirus pandemic, it has been postponed to next year.
Sarah wants to be in sports for many more years ahead. Therefore, she has decided to reduce the amount of time she takes in the competition. Hence, she would concentrate on one-length sprints only.
She explained to Swimming World:
“I’ll be 27 in the summer so I am still very young. My athlete career has been very long – if I am nearly 27 I have been doing really, really hard work for over 12 years so of course my body is getting tired sometimes but I definitely see many, many years. Especially now that the sport of swimming is getting more exciting with ISL and everything.
“I think I am going to be more of a 50 swimmer.”
“You need to really do some heavy lifting and also 100% focus when you do all the swimming work.
“At the moment my training is similar to a distance program: I am doing a lot of really long meters and fast swimming for a long time.
“I am still a good sprinter but to find a way to only focus on 50 fly and 50 free would be interesting.”
More about Sarah’s plans
Sarah seems to have a clear vision for her future. She continued:
“I am still really good at the short course so I am excited for ISL and I think the 50s are my favorite.”
“Maybe I can handle another 12 years but maybe I won’t go to World Champs and win five medals every time anymore: I think my body is starting to feel a little sore sometimes.
“Maybe when I go to world champs or Olympics sometimes I’ll do one or two events and then I’ll continue even longer.”
“It’s crazy how fast time goes. I think it’s because I had a lot of good people around me: a lot of good coaches, good support from the Swedish Olympic Committee and federation and Energy Standard the last couple of years.”
Source: Swimming World
