NC State men’s swimmer and senior Stephen Coetzer recently headed to Doha, Qatar, to compete with South Africa at the FINA World Swimming Championships. The Technician caught up with Coetzer to discuss his time with the Pack and his mindset heading to the international stage.
Technician: In your opinion, how has the season gone so far?
Coetzer: Well for NC State, it is going really well. Our men and women’s teams are winning right now. Everyone is swimming lights out, and right now we are battling through a little bit of adversity with people being sick or injured, but this seems to happen through any given season.
T: How has the season gone so far for you?
C: I feel like I’m doing just fine. I’m swimming faster than I ever have up until this point in the year, and I am happy with my times thus far, even though there is always room for improvement. I hope to have some fast swimming here in the coming week [FINA World Swimming Championships] that will carry me through the end of the season.
T: What are you looking forward to most about World’s competition?
C: Meeting my teammates; I’ve never been on the national team before, so I want to meet these people that I have been following for three to four years now. I’m also looking forward to the competition. It’s my first international competition, so I’m going to learn a lot about just how to compete and survive in the international swimming competition.
T: Do you have a favorite performance thus far in your career?
C: It was my 200 IM at the ACC Championships last year. I was seated sixth going into the finals. It was a big event for our team, and we needed more points to be scored. I was the only NC State swimmer in that final, and I got third place and set the school record. It was my first ever medal that I have won in college swimming.
T: How did you get involved in competitive swimming?
C: It was actually through my sister. She swam at Wingate University, and she was an All-American there. The summer before my sophomore year of high school, I got lost in watching swimming. At the 2008 summer Olympics, I watched Michael Phelps win eight gold medals. I think it was three weeks after that when I started swimming competitively.
T: Have you done anything different as far as training for the World Competition?
C: Originally the plan was to rest for this meet and back off the training so that my body is better prepared to swim fast. But, my coach, Braden Holloway, and I sat down and we spoke about how this is my senior season and my last shot to make my “legacy” in the ACC at NC State and at the NCAA Championships. Now, the ACC and NCAA Championships is my main focus this year. So, I have not backed off of the training for this meet.
T: How do you mentally prepare for a race?
C: It’s a long process, and it starts before I get to the race. For big meets like the World Championships, ACC and NCAA championships, it will start about a week to 10 days prior to the race. I will have a reoccurring dream where I actually forget how to swim, and then I wake up with a cold sweat in the middle of the night freaking out. Then I go swim in the morning, and I obviously still know how to swim. Then I will start thinking about strategy. Some specific things would be my kick count, stroke count and everything like that, just to keep my mind off of other people. I know I am better when I am not thinking about other people because all that matters is what I can do to put myself in the best position to achieve my goals. The day of my race, I will listen to my music to get myself pumped up, and I always wear warm clothes to keep my body warmed up for the race. Once I get up on the block, I clear my head and make peace with what I’ve done in my training and trust that that is enough.
