USA National Team Director Greg Meehan Says Knowledge Confirms That Racing Extra Is a New Team USA Precedence

In a dramatic shift from prior generations, the place American coaches appeared to be deemphasizing the significance of racing, USA Swimming National Team Director says that racing extra is the brand new focus for Team USA.

Speaking with Olympian Katie Hoff on the Unfiltered Waters podcast throughout the Indianapolis Pro Swim Series meet, Meehan talks about one of many key findings from knowledge scientist Corey Manley since returning to the group in January.

Manley labored with knowledge at USA Swimming for two-and-a-half years from January 2022 by way of June 2024. He left the group to teach Masters Swimming at Life Time in Colorado Springs for nearly a 12 months and took over as the top coach of the boy’s swim workforce at Fountain Valley School.

During that point, he additionally labored as a statistician for NBC Universal throughout the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

In July 2024, he was employed as an assistant swim coach and knowledge scientist for the varsity swimming & diving program at Arizona State, the place he labored for the 2024-2025 season.

He then spent 9 months in 2025 working for System2, an information analytics agency advising buyers.

In January 2026, he returned to Colorado Springs as a full-time Performance Scientist, and on the podcast Meehan revealed considered one of Manley’s early findings.

Meehan says that that they had a hunch that there was a correlation between racing reps and success, however didn’t have the information to again it up.

The former Stanford coach stated: “But then we did the data, and it’s like: gold medalists are racing more than non-gold medalists And medalists in general are racing more than the rest of the field in the final. And people that make the final are racing more than the people in the semifinal. It’s — I mean, it is almost to a tee. And so really taking that — that was part of what we shared at the national team coach seminar.”

While he didn’t give any examples, probably the most profitable U.S. ladies’s program of this decade, the University of Virginia, is legendary for his or her racing frequency – seemingly among the many anecdotal proof he was referencing.

Meehan stated that “more reps at race pace” is now a Team USA precedence.

Meehan was employed in his position in April 2025 after 13 seasons as the top coach of the ladies’s workforce at Stanford. His hiring marked a return to a coach-forward place main the National Team. He changed Lindsay Mintenko, who had expertise as a excessive stage athlete and a few expertise as a coach, however who served in additional of an administrative position than her predecessors.

Since his hiring, Meehan has dramatically expanded the USA Swimming employees, together with hiring former Wisconsin head coach Yuri Suguiyama and former Stanford assistant Kim Williams to hitch the National Team teaching employees.