Quote this article (in Danish) on Sporten.dk. According to the now 1500 freestyle short course world champion Mads Glæsner, the Danish male swimmers were ‘sacrificed’ for the female, their last 6 months of training downgraded with all focus instead on the needs of the women.
– ‘Paulus didn’t hide that the training was not prepared for swimmers training outside his group. He told us this a couple of days before the Olympics. That the training was planned and arranged for a few swimmers, and that the rest of us could just tag along. This information I had trouble with getting just a few days before the Olympics, says Glæsner with resentment in his voice.’
The article mentions Pál Joensen and then 1500 Olympic champion now Olympic 10K champion Oussama Mellouli as swimmers coming from the outside, and that Glæsner was happy to have especially Mellouli on the team, so that the two of them could discuss ‘absurd situations’ with now former Danish national team head coach Paulus Wildeboer.
– ‘There were suddenly really intense situations that I had no idea where came from. That kind that I’m not used to. Here in the U.S. they talk to swimmers in an entirely different way. As to adults, explains Glæsner.’
After the failed Olympics, Glæsner distanced himself as much as possible from the Danish National Training Center, and regained his motivation thanks to a new coach at the Trojan Swim Club in Los Angeles. From August and until the Istanbul 2012 World short course championships in December, he didn’t talk to Wildeboer, who during that time quit his job in Denmark. A silence that continued at the World championships, Wildeboer and Glæsner didn’t talk with each other at all, before Wildeboer congratulated him after his win in the 1500 freestyle.
The after the Olympics appointed Danish swimming boss Mikkel von Seelen confirms in another article on Sporten.dk that there were problems at the Olympics and the World Championships, and that they deliberately made this arrangement where Wildeboer and Glæsner didn’t have to confront each other. “Considering that Mads became World champion, I believe that we with some conviction can say that it was the right decision.”
See also Jyllands-Posten (in Danish)
(Please excuse me – Rókur – for possible bad translations between Danish and English. My first language is Faroese :-)
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