“Leave it at home,” are David Ling’s words of wisdom as he warms up on deck before the U of T hosted Grand Prix swim tournament. Veteran of the Varsity Blues swim team, Ling has become adept at blocking out the bad and focusing on the good before he gets in the pool for U of T. A good thing, too, because lately, incidents seem to be inexplicably drawn to Ling.
In the Nov. 27 Varsity article about swimmer Iris Elliot’s spinal injury, endured in December 2002, Ling was mentioned as helping in Elliot’s rescue. Put to the “life-or-death” test again at the end of the 2003 summer, Ling was one of the primary rescuers of a seizure victim in the AC pool. The man was a Toronto priest, who died a week after being rescued.
Most recently, were it not for the quick first aid care provided by Ling and a few other Blues swimmers, Marc Mazzucco, a rookie swimmer on the varsity team, would be completely blind. On the way to training camp in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, the van Mazzocco and Ling were passengers in got into a car accident near Ohio.
But the pressures of the pool deck and training camp trips are only some of the mental stresses that affect this swimmer. Family pressure and health concerns also weigh heavy on Ling’s shoulders.
“David is going to be the first Ling to graduate from university,” says Ling’s mother as she prepares to write down her son’s times for his 800-metre freestyle event.
“Dave has been sick all week and was really under the weather last weekend,” said Ling’s girl friend, Frances Wensley. With the cold front hitting Toronto hard this year, many swimmers have been catching the flu or getting earaches. Ling is no exception. “But I am sure he will finish in at least the top five because that is how Dave is.”
With these events and sickness affecting Ling outside the pool, he mentally prepares himself for his event by leaving enough time to properly warm up and put himself into game mode.
“He is so anti-social before his event,” said Natasha Jaczek, a friend and co-worker of Ling’s at the AC. Jaczek was surprised to learn that Ling begins his event preparation hours before show time-during her swimming days, she would prepare much closer to the starting gun.
Still a long time before his 800-metre race is scheduled to begin, Ling dives into the pool to warm up his body, but also to mentally focus on his upcoming event. He starts with two hundred metres of kicking, rotating between flutter kick and dolphin kick. He prepares his body and his mental reflexes to streamline as much as he can, especially for a swim of 800 metres in the front crawl.
“The only thing important is the event itself,” says Ling as he looks up in the stands seeing his mother talk to his girlfriend before his event. Knowing he can’t control all of the unexpected events that have happened to him outside the pool in the past year, Ling knows that when he hits the water, the race is all that matters. “Leave all that stuff at home,” he said. “It’s bad for the team and it’s bad for you.”
He doesn’t even speak to his mother before his race. “He knows I am here, but he does not acknowledge me and I do not acknowledge him,” Ling’s mother said. “That is how it has always been before his event.” The few words that did come out of Ling’s mouth were encouraging cheers for his kid brother Scott Ling, and other fellow team mates. A focused athlete to the extreme, only well after the race does Ling return to the happy-go-lucky, kind person his friends know him to be.
David Ling placed third in the 800-metre swim this weekend.
