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Biedermann A Work In Progress

Feb 20, 2010  - Craig Lord

Paul Biedermann noted after emerging from a 3:52 win in a 400m freestyle at the GBR Vs GER duel in Swansea that saw three men much closer to him with 50m to go trail home in 3:55: "I can't really say whether that's good or not. I have to swim a couple more competitions before I can tell." fair enough.

Much mention all around of Rome's 3:40.07. But there can be no comparison, of course. Not just because of a suit but because Biedermann, like everyone else around him at the duel, represents a work in progress. He came to the duel in Swansea to get some race practice in, for a training exercise, and to help Germany hold its head high. On that level, he had a fine day, winning the 100m with the only sub-50sec effort and then doing just what he needed for seven laps before driving his status home and place that, at least in these waters, beyond any doubt.

Biedermann's coach Frank Embacher indicated the work still yet to do when he suggested he was happy with what had been achieved fitness-wise at one end of the body but not the other (upper body and core versus legs). Next month, he will head with other German teammates for a month of training in Tenerife, and was unconcerned with the time on the clock. 

Germany's battle training in Potsdam in January had proved to be very demanding for the world 200m and 400m champion, he acknowledged. The intensity of work had been geared more to distance than middle-distance swimmers a little too sudden and steep a transition from post-Rome break and a time of easing back into full work. "I was a little bit sad that the Russians didn't come (Isotov, for example)," Biedermann told SwimNews. "I train only for the middle distance and I had all these guys swimming 10km a session and they are so fast in the training and doing 6km in a row. For me, that was something completely different."

Biedermann has shed 1.5kg or so over winter but "during the race [in Swansea], I thought I have to lose more because you really feel everything with your body ... you even feel the [difference in the] parts of the body that are fine and which are not."

Did he enjoy "real" swimming? "Yes, of course, but we'll see because swimming is also about having a good time and if you have a good time it feels good. Right now I don't have good times but I'm not too worried." The difference with swimming in textile jammers was that his stroke felt "more open, you feel the glide more [as a dead zone not an assistance] and you feel the pain more. You really have to train more and do more competitions ... ".

He hoped there would be more duels and similar events across Europe and felt that they would make an important contribution to the need to find ways of competing against the USA. Europe, by "coming together for training and competition" could "double its strength", he believed. 

"The Brits are in very good shape," noted Biedermann at the end of day one in Swansea, home to one of Britain's Intensive Training Centres. The crowd warmed to him when he paid plaudits to the organisation (of a meet that had been intended to be a closed-door Brits only test run until the idea of a duel blossomed) and said that the crowd had made him feel most welcome.

The first questions he faced from the media (no, not from me), were focussed back in Rome and on suits, most specifically about the 200m free and his memory of the momentous events of that day back in July, events which led to him being voted Germany's male athlete of the year. Biedermann said: "Actually I watch it sometimes on YouTube or on DVD with my parents. I was asking myself 'what were you thinking during the race' and I can't remember because all I was doing was concentrating on me (sic) ... not looking who was next to me."

Biedermann described Phelps as "the greatest swimmer in the world" but as to who was the best 200m freestyler that was for the future to decide. "There are rumours that he may come to Europe, to Monaco, to the Mare Nostrum [June] but I don't know. Then  in December, Dubai for the world short-course championships." 

When and if the clash should come, Biedermann intended to be ready and looked forward to the moment, though his main goals in 2010 were focussed on what the calendar had to offer: his goals for this summer are to retain his 200m Europe crown in Budapest and "attack the 400 and to see how fast I am now in general".