Hunter Kroll - (Author)

Which Stroke Is Truly the Decider in the Individual Medley? The individual medley events can be some of the most exciting races. With every stroke change, there is the potential for the shape of the race to completely change. All of a swimmer’s strengths and weaknesses are on display, and this opens...

Which Stroke is Truly the Decider in the Individual Medley? (Long Course Edition; Stats Included) The individual medley races can be some of the most exciting races, due to the variety of strategies employed by different swimmers. This can lead to significant changes in the race in just one 50 or on...

An Olympic Men’s 400 Freestyle Relay Showdown: Russia vs. USA The United States has been on a tear in the men’s 400 freestyle relay in recent years. After taking gold at the 2016 Olympic Games, the U.S. followed that performance up with gold at both the 2017 and 2019 World Championships. Led by 100 ...

Who Should Young Swimmers' Role Models Be? As age-group swimmers, we often find ourselves looking up to the best in our sport. A great example is Michael Phelps. Many current swimmers grew up watching Phelps win gold medal after gold medal at the Olympic Games and World Championships. Naturally, we ...

Taking a Step Back From the Recruiting Process The college recruiting process is a turbulent time. For athletes, the choices they make will determine their experience over the next four years. I know this from my own experience with the process, from September 2018 to September 2019. While I juggled...

Finding Your Own Race Strategy: How I Became a More Successful Distance Swimmer For me, distance swimming was all about the training. In my sophomore year of high school, I routinely did 500s, 1000s, even 3000s in practice, all in an attempt to get stronger and improve my endurance for those longer ...

How to Thrive at Your First National Level Swim Meet You made it. You put in the work, got under the qualifying time, and now you are headed to your first national level meet. While this can be exciting, the meet itself can also be a source of stress. National meets bring with them faster competitio...

Men’s 1500 Freestyle in Tokyo: Will It Be Another All-European Final? Something interesting happened in the men’s 1500-meter freestyle final at the 2019 World Championships: All eight finalists were Europeans. In fact, the 10-fastest swimmers out of prelims were all European-based, setting up an unu...

Problems in Swim Practice: How to Deal with the Difficulties of Training By Hunter Kroll, Swimming World College Intern We have all had those days, weeks, or even entire training cycles, where nothing is going right. In spite of all our efforts, we just cannot swim fast. Repeat after repeat, set aft...

The Importance of Identity: Does Swimming Define Us? By Hunter Kroll, Swimming World Intern It is easy, as a young swimmer, to form your identity around swimming. It provides us with a place where we can hang out with our friends, have some fun, and get away from everything else for a little while. ...