13 April 2006
World’s Aquatic Athletes Choosing To Train in the United States
U.S. collegiate swimming-diving championships become increasingly international
Washington -- To be the best, you need to train with the best. That adage has been taken to heart by hundreds of swimmers and divers who left their home countries to pursue academic degrees and advanced training in U.S. universities.
Since the advent of the modern Olympic Games, the United States has enjoyed tremendous success in international aquatic competition. In swimming, the United States has dominated international competition for decades, with Australia only recently beginning to close the gap. In diving, nearly half of all medals awarded in the modern Olympics have gone to U.S. divers.
That trend is shifting as aquatic athletes worldwide train in American pools and compete in events representing the University of Wisconsin, University of Southern California and the University of Hawaii rather than their sports nationalities of Malaysia, Canada and China. At the 2006 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Swimming and Diving Championships in Georgia, what mattered was not where you come from but where you go to school.
The NCAA is a voluntary organization comprising more than 1,250 institutions through which the United States' colleges and universities govern their athletics programs. Of the three divisions, Division I is the most competitive, with high standards for facilities, demanding sports schedules, and substantial financial aid available to qualified athletes.
For these athletes, the choice to learn and train far from home is not an easy one. It means long stretches of time away from family and friends and adapting to a new environment and new training regimen. They come because they believe they receive a level of support, both athletically and academically, unmatched in the rest of the world. (See related article.)
OLYMPIC ATHLETES COMPETE FOR NCAA HONORS
Of the top six finishers in the 50-yard men’s freestyle swimming event, four compete internationally for countries other than the United States. University of Arizona’s Simon Burnett represented Great Britain at the 2004 Olympics, while his college teammate Lyndon Ferns competed for South Africa. Auburn University swimmer George Bovell won Olympic bronze in 2004 for Trinidad and Tobago; teammate Cesar Cielo represented Brazil at the 2005 FINA World Championships.
In the 200-yard breaststroke, University of California’s Henrique Barbosa (hometown Belo Horizonte, Brazil) edged out University of Alabama’s Vlad Polyakov (of Pteropavl, Kazakstan) for the gold medal. In the 200-yard butterfly, Hungarian Viktor Bodrogi of the University of Southern California battled Brazilian Gus Calaodo of Virginia Tech for bronze. All compete internationally for their home countries.
In diving, Arizona State’s Joona Puhakka took silver medals in both the one-meter and three-meter springboard competitions. He represented Finland in both the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics, and medaled in both the 2003 FINA World Championships and 2004 European Championships.
In the NCAA Women’s Championships, University of Florida’s Vipa Bernhardt, a member of the 2004 German Olympic team, won silver in the 200-yard breaststroke event, while University of Wisconsin’s Yi Ting Siow, who represented Malaysia at the 2004 Olympics, finished fifth in the 200-yard individual medley and sixth in the 200-yard breaststroke.
Diver Blythe Hartley, who won bronze for Canada at the 2004 Olympic Games, captured double gold at the NCAAs, winning both springboard events for the University of Southern California and her coach, Hongping Li, a Chinese Olympic diver.
But NCAA medalists are only one aspect of the increasingly international face of U.S. collegiate aquatic sports as athletes from all over the world come to the United States to realize their full academic and athletic potential.
Auburn University’s rosters for swimming and diving include athletes from Australia, Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, France and Trinidad a nd Tobago. Arizona State University offers a similarly eclectic line-up, with athletes from Brazil, Canada, Finland, Italy, Great Britain, Hungary, Israel, Kuwait and Sweden. At the University of Alabama, a swimmer from Ecuador shares the pool with athletes from Greece, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Romania and South Africa.
With such broad participation, the NCAA Championships provide a good preview for future international competition. Because, for the world’s 2008 Olympic hopefuls in swimming and diving, the road to Beijing probably passes through a U.S. university.
For additional information on studying in the United States, see the State Department Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs EducationUSA Web site and the electronic journal, College and University Education in the United States.
