Very interesting to see Duncan Scott reference #Antifragility in his withdrawal from the Worlds – and followed by some Latin! Couldn’t believe it.
Antifragility is a concept a few of us have been exploring, and swimming is something I know more than enough about.
I was wondering why he mentioned #antifragility.
There must be a recognition that the World Championships could break him right now.
Antifragility is concept coined by the madman and genius ‘Nassim Taleb’ about something that gains from stressors and shocks, thriving typically from reversible and small stressors (e.g. here, high intensity training).
No matter how antifragile a system, everything, however, has its fragility at a certain degree of (usually localised) shock, and although the human body is one of the most adaptable (if not the most adaptable) species on Earth, any shock too large can cause outright collapse. Something we want to actively avoid.
Any championship exerts enormous mental and physical stress, and evidently whatever stress it’s likely to inflict, Scott is aware that he won’t recover from that stress right now, even though he’s been there a hundred times before. Right now, he’s insufficiently adaptable as a result of illness. Looking at a longer time period, it’s more important to recover than to exert more stress. (Via negativa). This references survivability. Hopefully he’s thinking about more olympics, more championships, more great times, and generally continuing with the sport.
Swimming is a notoriously demanding and a shortlived sporting career at a high level, although it doesn’t need to be. But it’s worth exploring where the fragilities are.
There are few stresses on the joints or bones (the main reason why so many other athletes can’t continue from other sports like running, rugby, gymnastics etc), so there’s almost unlimited training potential in swimming. The fragility is actually not on the physical body, but rather more in the mind.
Thorpey retired at about 23 and appears to be on a journey of recovery ever since. Phelps famously and understandably went ‘off the rails’ a few times, but seems to be in a good place now.
I wonder if my own background in swimming is part of the reason I have been interested in antifragility and also increasingly about the topic of burnout.
There are two documentaries worth watching which highlight the mental side of sport at a high level, particularly swimming:
Head above water
The weight of Gold
I swam against Duncan Scott at the British University Championships some years ago. He’s an incredible swimmer and a joy to watch. He’s also one of these ‘amazing freaks’ that breaks all the rules. He’s traditionally a long distance swimmer (so he’s very light) but somehow has managed to clock the second fastest 100m sprint time (usually the domain of the big dudes)! So, he’s a very adaptable athlete.
Overall, seems like a wise decision and glad to see a reference to antifragility