Get to know WA's young and talented OWS swimmer, Bianca Monaco!

27 January 2022

Despite only being 14-years-old, Westside Christ Church Aquatic’s Bianca Monaco is already stamping her authority on distance and open water swimming.

The best part? Monaco had to be bribed by her older sister to start competing in open water races due to her fear of sharks!

Since honing her focus on longer distance events however, Monaco has thrived. She has won numerous open water swimming events across WA and even recently won bronze in the 1500m Freestyle at Nationals, courtesy of an amazing 30-second PB.

With a huge future ahead of her, Monaco kindly took some time to speak with Swimming WA and discuss how she balances her training load with her time at school, along with her short and long-term aspirations in swimming.

Bianca Monaco

How and when did you first get involved with swimming?

Monaco – “I first got involved in swimming at a young age and joined State Swim, which then developed into joining squads.

 

I’m not and never have been naturally talented, especially when I was younger. I always wished to get state medals like my sisters and I would only get them if I was in a relay. State times were also quite difficult to achieve.

 

I started distance swimming when I was around 12 years old and really enjoyed it, so I decided to keep on pursuing it. Initially I started quite slow at longer distances, although I kept training as hard as I could and got help from my coaches. After years of hard work, eventually my pace and endurance improved to where I am now.  

 

I never was interested in surf club when I was younger because I was terrified of sharks and jellyfish, so I never had open water swimming experience before I took the plunge and it’s still quite new to me!”

Bianca Monaco

What clubs and coaches have you trained with throughout your career?

 

Monaco – “When I was seven years old, I had passed all the levels at State Swim and eventually decided to move to Fremantle Swimming Club. I trained with Olympic Coach, Simon Redmond, who got me interested in competitive swimming and taught me basic technique skills.

 

At age nine I moved to St Hilda’s Swim Club and trained with Jon Harrison and Deb Jones, which was when I started to become a sprinter and did my first race when I was 10 years old.

 

When I was 11, I moved to Westside Christ Church Aquatic which is where I am now. I trained with Will Greenwood up until last year. Will got me into doing distance and developed my technique and taught me the importance of training hard. Now I am back with Jon Harrison, who is developing my distance swimming even further.

 

To get to training it is around a 15-minute drive in the morning and a 25-minute drive in the afternoons because of traffic. Throughout my open water competitions so far, I have travelled to Queensland for nationals but unfortunately haven’t been able to go other places because of Covid restrictions.

 

Thankfully, Open Water Swimming in WA still allows swimmers to travel all over the state because of our different lockdown conditions, which has helped keep our competition thriving.”

Bianca Monaco

What is your current weekly load of training?

 

Monaco – “My current training consists of around seven two-hour sessions per week and two gym sessions. 

 

We have some variations between hard and easy sessions, which helps us to recover and then build up speed again for targeted competitions. The longest and craziest sessions I have done is probably 5km aerobic pace, 3x1500’s of Freestyle descending pace and then 500 maximum speed or 100x100’s. These sets were obviously quite long and challenging, but it’s necessary in training so you can hold the best possible pace in longer open water swimming events.

 

Balancing school and swimming for me currently isn’t too bad since I’m only in year nine. I usually try and make sure I complete assessments as quickly as possible and plan some spare time on the weekends to study. I like setting study plans for after competitions as well. It’s good to stay on top of tasks and be organised considering I spend a large majority of my time training or competing.”

Bianca Monaco

What was it about open water swimming that attracted you?

 

Monaco – “I got into open water swimming because my older sister bribed me! She had done a few open water races despite not mainly focusing on distance events and thought I would love it. I never wanted to do open water swimming initially because I was terrified of swimming in the ocean, as were my parents!

 

My coach at the time, Will Greenwood, gave me longer training sessions to help prepare me. I knew I could make the distance, it was more if a shark would eat me along the way!

 

I tried my first open water race and it was fantastic. I found it way more enjoyable than pool swimming and a lot of open water swimmers can relate to that. My coach said I should continue doing it, so I decided to target open water swimming specifically.

 

I also love the fact that every open water event is different even if you are at the same location. This comes down to changing conditions such as wind, swell and temperature. You have to adapt to many different conditions and it also allows you to travel all over WA to it’s beautiful beaches, rivers and dams and also outside of WA for National Championships.”

Bianca Monaco

What are your proudest career accomplishments so far?

 

Monaco – “My proudest accomplishments so far would probably be taking out the bronze medal at nationals for the 1500m Freestyle with a 30-second personal best time. I wasn’t expecting it at all, which made the surprise achievement more enjoyable.

 

Another highlight was making it on to the Silver Performance Squad, where I was selected for a five-day training camp. This was great for learning new things about training, as well as learning new race strategies in the open water swimming performance squad.

 

Another accomplishment is winning the under-15 age category for the Open Water Swimming Series recently, which was really cool.”

Bianca Monaco

What are your short-term goals?

 

Monaco – “In the next 12 months I’m hoping that I will be able to travel to pool and the future open water nationals as this would be an amazing opportunity. My goal for those events is to try and get a personal best time, which will then determine my placings and hopefully show all the hard training I have done is leading to great progress.

 

Outside of swimming, my goals are to just keep up with the schoolwork load and manage all my studies. Swimming and studying requires having a very coordinated and efficient balance and I feel I’m currently doing well with managing the workload.”

 

What are your long-term goals?

 

Monaco – “My long-term goals are probably to keep going to as many national competitions as possible and I would love to compete at the Olympic or Commonwealth Games trials in the future. I will see where swimming takes me after that.

 

When I am older my goal is to compete in the Rottnest Channel Swim. It has always been something I would love to do as it is a target competition for many elite open water swimmers. WA has many incredibly talented open water swimmers and I would like to see how well I can do up against the best competition.”

Bianca Monaco

What are your hobbies outside of the pool?

 

Monaco – “Outside of swimming, I like to travel down south with my family on the weekends and spend as much time as possible down at the beach with my sisters.

 

To chill out, I also love to walk my dog to local parks. I also played netball up until last year which I found enjoyable, but then I stopped because of all the ankle injuries! It can be difficult to maintain other sports when swimming takes up such a large majority of time, but I’ll still play netball occasionally with friends for a bit of laid-back fun.”

 

How do you prepare for your competitions?

 

Monaco – “To prepare for open water races I usually just hang around my swimming friends and have friendly banter with them because they help me to relax.

 

I usually listen to music in the car to relax and prevent overthinking, then the moment I arrive at the event I’ll start preparing myself mentally and physically. One habit that I have is getting to open water swimming events quite early. I like to go for a little swim and feel the temperature of the water before the race starts, so my body doesn’t receive a shock as I enter the water.

 

Another habit of mine for open water competitions is that I always put on Amanzi bathers for open water swimming because they are super soft. They are the only type that I like for open water swimming and comfort is everything when you’re competing for hours at a time.  

 

The food that I usually eat for breakfast before the race is normally Weet-Bix with banana, which helps energise me and is a safe go-to for a pre-swim feed.

 

I will only relax my training intensity and taper for Open Water Nationals. We don’t tend to do prolonged tapering for states or other mid-season races, we usually just carry large loads of training blocks into WA-based meets.

 

Before longer open water events we tend to go a bit easier in training the day before and shorten the distances and reduce the intensity. This is so that we don't potentially injure ourselves or go into the event with fatigue.

 

For open water races, my tactic is to sprint my hardest at the beginning and keep my head down so I don’t get whacked in the face! From there I try to get into a rhythm that I will be able to hold consistently for the remainder of the race. At the end of the race during the last 500m, I often pick up the pace and start building into a sprint finish.”

Bianca Monaco

What advice would you give other open water swimmers?

 

Monaco – “My advice would be to never give up on open water swimming events even if you aren’t doing as well as you want. The secret is to try and do as many as you can because competing in lots of open water events can help develop how you want to swim the race through attempting different personal tactics.

 

Once you find a tactic that works for you, such as going out hard or preserving energy until the finish, you can make that routine part of your own niche for how you take on each event.

 

It’s also incredibly important to work on technique so that you’re working at peak efficiency in the water. This can come down to working on your underwater catch, kick, sight-breathing, head position, rotation or even how you’ll approach each training set.

 

The last tip I’ll give is always listen to your coach as they always know what is best for you and will always lead you in the right direction. They have the best view of your technique as well and will pick up on important changes you never knew you needed to implement.”

Bianca Monaco

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