Olympian and Australian world record holder swimmer Kyle Chalmers participated in a virtual mixed zone while he was competing at the FINA World Cup in Indianapolis.
“For me, it has been an opportunity to get back to what I love doing. I love racing and I love performing in front of a crowd. Last year with COVID, we were limited with crowd capacity, so having crowds in these stadiums is awesome. The Short Course Worlds is the pinnacle of the year, and I want to finish this year off swimming as fast as I possibly can in Melbourne in front of a home crowd,” he said.
“Having the opportunity to race against the best guys in the world and refining my racing skills has been awesome. My main focus on Friday night is going for my seventh straight win in the 100 meter freestyle, and the race is just fun,” he added.
When asked which areas he wants to improve upon, Chalmers said, “For me, it’s just refinding my skills: my dive and turn, obviously. Short course swimming is all about having fast skills: 60 meters of my race is spent underwater so if I can get my fly kick working well and get off those blocks a little bit quicker, I know that I will be swimming close to my best times again come Melbourne.”
“At the moment, we are training in the gym and we are doing big workloads in the pool so I am not swimming as fast as I would have hoped, but I will be fit and firing by the time Short Course Worlds comes around in Melbourne,” he added.
“I had the world record last year at the World Cup series in Kazan, so for me, the World Cup series, will always hold a special spot in my heart. Now, if I swim a personal best in the 100 free that will be a world record so that’s even more motivation to swim PBs (personal bests) now,” he said.
He opened up about his reptiles, which are at home in Adelaide, Australia. “The reptiles are good,” he admitted. “Unfortunately this year, I’ve spent probably eight to 10 weeks in Adelaide the whole entire year, so they have been neglected by me. My mom and my friends had to take over a significant workload looking after them. They are good and they are something I look forward to always when I get home.”
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