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Specials Sets: The Development of Paige Madden
By Michael J. Stott
The University of Virginia’s Paige Madden played an important role in the Cavaliers’ first-ever women’s NCAA swimming and diving team championship in March, winning four events. Greg Davis, her club coach, remembers when she was also a successful age grouper, and shares some of her City of Mobile sets when she was 15.
When talent and work ethic convene, the sky is often the limit. So it wouldn’t surprise Greg Davis, Paige Madden’s City of Mobile age group coach, if June’s Olympic Trials doesn’t once again find the University of Virginia senior—and this year’s four-time NCAA national champion (200-500-1650 free, 800 free relay)—representing the United States in another international competition. Consider her background:
• 14x NCAA All-American
• 13x ACC champion
• 2x ACC Swimmer of the Meet
• 2x medalist at the 2019 World University Games (gold 4 x 200 free relay, silver 200 free)
• 2x USA Swimming national junior team member
• 2x NCSA champion in 400 meter freestyle
• 7x NISCA All-American
• 11x Alabama high school state champion
• Top three all time at University of Virginia (200-500-1000-1650 free, 200 back)
IN THE BEGINNING
“I saw incredible talent and potential in Paige from the very first day,” Davis says of his then seventh-grader. I had seen her develop through our age group program, was excited to work with her, and I felt she wasn’t even close to reaching her full potential once graduating high school.”
What Davis found was an extremely coachable student of the sport.
“Her work ethic and leg drive were incredible. Her kick is phenomenal and has always been one of her biggest assets. No matter the practice, test sets or meets, Paige loved to race. Her mental focus and intensity were superb,” he says.
With a training focus of long-term development, IM/technique, heavy kick and quality over quantity, Madden swam part of every workout at race pace. “She trained hard and fast every day, averaging nine workouts a week (5,000-6,000 yards per afternoon practice) through her high school years,” says Davis.
“Morning workouts averaged 2,000-3,500 with heavy emphasis on speed and power development—i.e., power racks, parachutes, fins/paddles, stretch cords (resistant and speed-assisted). Paige’s dryland training included core strength work, weights (Olympic lifts, power circuit, etc.) and yoga. During holidays, we increased the yardage and number of sessions,” he says.
Paige was one of, if not the most, intrinsically driven athletes, both in training and in the classroom, that I’ve worked with,” he says. “Whether it was the weight room or pool, she was always on a ‘mission’ and had no other goal except to make herself better each and every day. I very rarely, if ever, had to get on her about intensity. In six years of coaching Paige, I never witnessed her going easy, slow or bagging sets. She was a machine.
“Her focus was always on making herself better. No matter how much it hurt or how hard she had to work, she left it all in the pool, every day. She always wanted to take care of business and get herself to the next level.
“Academically, it was no different. Every travel trip, whether it be a plane, bus or van, Paige was studying—books out and always working on her academics. She is the true epitome of a student-athlete.” (The ACC thought so, too, selecting her as its 2020 Co-ACC Scholar Athlete).
CITY OF MOBILE SETS
Following are two sets that Madden did at age 15 as a run-up to the NCSA meet in spring 2014, when she finished fifth in the 200 yard free (1:46.08), third in the 500 (4:43.26) and eighth in the 1000 (9:52.28). At 16, one year later, Madden qualified first in the 500 (4:45.29), won the final—which was swum as a 400-meter race (4:14.56)—and collected a third in the 500 and eighth in the 1000.
To access the special sets that propelled Paige Madden to the podium,
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[PHOTO CREDIT: ISHOF ARCHIVE]
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Swimming World May 2021 Issue
FEATURES
014 WOMEN’S NCAAs: A NEW NO. 1
For the first time in the history of the NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships—since 1982—the University of Virginia finished first. It was also the first time it cracked the top 5 with its previous highest finish sixth in 2019.
- VIRGINIA’S ROAD TO HISTORY
by Dan D’Addona - NC STATE ADDS TO ACC DOMINANCE
by Dan D’Addona - THE TALK OF THE MEET: MAGGIE MacNEIL
by John Lohn
018 MEN’S NCAAs: THE PERFECT RETIREMENT GIFT
Days before their coach, Eddie Reese, officially announced his retirement from coaching after 43 years, the Texas men’s team won their 15th men’s NCAA national team championship.
- THIS ONE’S FOR EDDIE!
by Andy Ross - SCINTILLATING PERFORMANCES: SHAINE CASAS & RYAN HOFFER
by John Lohn - PATIENCE REWARDED: MAX McHUGH & NICK ALBIERO
by Andy Ross
022 NCAA D-II CHAMPS: SOME THINGS NEVER SEEM TO CHANGE
by Andy Ross
A year into the pandemic that has completely changed our world, Queens University of Charlotte brought about some stability to the 2021 NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships by sweeping their sixth straight women’s and men’s team titles.
023 NO LIMITS!
by David Rieder
Claire Curzan has been swimming fast since she was a young age grouper and has continued to do so in high school. Last March, she came within 13-hundredths of the American record in the short course 100 fly, and in April, she found herself within 22-hundredths of the long course U.S. best. She’s versatile, she’s coachable, she has international experience, and she’s moved from a fringe Olympic contender to an Olympic favorite. Curzan is only 16, and her promising future couldn’t be brighter.
026 TAKEOFF TO TOKYO: WHEN IRISH EYES WEREN’T SMILING
by John Lohn
Ireland’s Michelle Smith—a four-time Olympic medalist in 1996 who received a four-year ban from the sport in 1998 for tampering with a doping sample—has been defined as being a poster girl for cheating, and by her willingness to cut corners and take advantage of performance-enhancing drug use to make the leap from an athlete of very-good skill to one of elite status.
029 50 SWIMMERS, 6 MEDALS
by Dan D’Addona
The Tokyo Olympics will mark the fourth occasion that open water swimming will be contested on the Olympic level, and even a 10-kilometer marathon race can bring exciting moments and dramatic finishes.
030 JOSH MATHENY: RISING STAR
by Matthew De George
From a middle-schooler newly committed to swimming full-time in 2016, the future looks encouraging for 18-year-old Josh Matheny, who approaches the U.S. Olympic Trials for Tokyo in June as a dark horse to make the team in men’s breaststroke.
032 ISHOF: THE ART OF SWIMMING
by Bruce Wigo
This is the story of Hero and Leander, Lord Byron and the birth of open water swimming.
035 NUTRITION: HYDRATION—BEYOND THIRST!
by Dawn Weatherwax
Hydration truly has a daily importance for all kinds of swimmers from age groupers to Olympians to Masters swimmers, but it tends to get more notoriety when the weather gets warmer.
COACHING
012 THE POWER OF POSITIVE COACHING
by Michael J. Stott
Relationships built upon honesty, trust and communication go a long way toward cementing a bond between coach and athlete. Coupling that with knowledge of the individual first and athlete second produces a positive working relationship that can last for a lifetime.
038 SWIMMING TECHNIQUE CONCEPTS: MAXIMIZING SWIMMING VELOCITY (Part 1)—STROKE RATE vs. STROKE LENGTH
by Rod Havriluk
Swimming velocity is the criterion measure for swimming performance and is the product of stroke length and stroke rate. This article explains how stroke length and stroke rate vary and how stroke time provides insight into maximizing swimming velocity.
042 Q&A WITH COACH STEVE HAUFLER
by Michael J. Stott
044 HOW THEY TRAIN CHARLOTTE SHAMIA
by Michael J. Stott
TRAINING
037 DRYSIDE TRAINING: THE IM DRYLAND CIRCUIT
by J.R. Rosania
JUNIOR SWIMMER
047 UP & COMERS: TEAGAN O’DELL
by Shoshanna Rutemiller
COLUMNS
008 A VOICE FOR THE SPORT
011 DID YOU KNOW: ABOUT THE MOREHOUSE TIGER SHARKS?
046 THE OFFICIAL WORD
048 GUTTERTALK
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