This podcast was recorded last week with somebody I’ve admired in both her athletic and professional career. Samantha Arsenault Livingstone was a 2000 Olympic Gold medalist.

I wanted to have Samantha on because we connected over the fact that she’s pretty brutally honest about the peaks and valleys she had along the way, and dedicated herself to helping others when they encounter the same. We had a far reaching conversation covering almost two decades. Enjoy:

Some links that we discussed during the podcast:

www.samanthalivingstone.com/control 

www.samanthalivingstone.com/gift 

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In the wake of the OC Register’s reporting earlier in the week that an FBI Veteran, hired to investigate Sean Hutchison, was very much not allowed to investigate, I called up Sarah Ehekircher.

We go through the article and give context to the names and players involved, and what some of the facts suggest about the broader Olympic sport culture:

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This week I’m joined by my friend Glenn Neufeld to discuss last month’s Easterns, and the road to reviving the meet over the last three years.

We also talk about some of the surprising things at the meet that make it a little different from your average swimming competition:

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Sarah Ehekircher comes back to update on her own saga for justice against her former coach, before we pivot to a discussion of what happened last month in Fishers, Indiana and the fallout from a group of administrators abdicating their responsibility.

We finish by getting a little fired up as we usually do about broader topics concerning creating a safe environment for kids in sport.

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The Swim Brief returns with Trever Gray to talk about a smorgasbord of topics. First Trever and I get to the follow up on our respective high school seasons before turning to the big meet, PAC-12s, that we got to watch this past weekend.

Finally we talk about the recent decision made to cut Oregon State’s program that I have already shared some personal feelings on.

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A conversation with Sarah Ehekircher about the possibility of a second NBOR (National Board of Review) after the botched one in 2010. We talk about the process of even getting to the point where USA Swimming would consider another one.

All of this takes place with the backdrop of USA Swimming’s biennial “Safe Sport Leadership Conference”, leading me to speculate whether the two are connected. Enjoy:

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This week I got Garrett McCaffrey to come in and do our swimming version of sports talk radio. We discuss pro swimming, whether we think it’s time to buy/sell stock in Ryan Lochte and finally we use the crazy story about Sun Yang as a springboard for a broader conversation about doping.

Enjoy:

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In a follow up to last week’s podcast with Monica Strzempko, I sat down with Becky Finley, a former teammate of Sarah Ehekircher. We discuss what it was like to come up to an “elite” team at a young age (13) and all the kinds of radical behavior that she accepted as normal.

We also discuss at what point she decided that it was not normal for her coach, Scott MacFarland, to intervene in the way that he did:

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I recorded a podcast yesterday with Monica Strzempko and Sarah Ehekircher yesterday. We wanted to highlight the issue of grooming and how it paves the way for abuse. For more on Monica and some context around why we spoke to her, look to yesterday’s preview.

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Lee Sommers got his start coaching swimming athletes with the best in the world, Katie Ledecky. Since then he’s built a business working and advising many more on how to get the best possible training out of the water.

We talk about how he got that start, as well as some of the principals that drive what he does. He also addresses some common misconceptions he sees in dryland training for swimming.

Follow Lee Sommers on instagram.

His website