At the tail end of a summer filled with big international meets, the World Junior Championships are just around the corner. The championships will be in Singapore and take place from Aug 25th to the 30th. The team is currently scheduled to reassemble on August 20th to travel to Singapore for the Championships.
Michael Andrew, now considered a veteran with the US Jr national team, is slated for a schedule that might even make Katinka Hosszu turn her head in surprise. After competing for the US at the 2014 Pan Pacific Jr Championships in only the 100 backstroke, Andrew has stepped up his game big time. He qualified for the team at US Nationals in 5 (that’s right, 5) individual events: 100 fly, 100 back, 100 breast, 50 free, and 200 IM. In addition to this already monster line up, he is expecting to swim all 3 50’s of specialty (which weren’t swam at US Nationals since they are non-olympic events), as well as medley relays, both male and mixed.
Not only does the 16-year-old pro swimmer believe he can excel in this grueling schedule; he’s going for gold. Andrew is confident that USRPT has prepared him to handle this insane agenda with poise and success, because the training method emphasizes maximum recovery in between race efforts.
At this point in his career, all I can say is repeat Michael Phelp’s (who had quite the meet himself recently) age old mantra: anything is possible. Michael Andrew has now been a professional athlete for 2 years now, and has continued to have great successes and significant time drops in meets where he is swimming upwards of 10 races over 3-5 days. He knows how to handle the pressure of international competition and national expectations, and he obviously knows how to step up when it matters most.
This will be one storyline in August that is not to be missed.
Sorry everyone but I still see him as a kid that was fortunate to have an early growth spurt. It will be hard to follow him in the next few years as his performances plateau. To all you late bloomers out there, your time will come. Hang in there!
Right! the Psych sheet is on the website so here goes:
100 Back 2nd seed (Luke Greenback 1st with Ulrich .03 and Glinta .11 behind and Michael Thomas 0.18)
100 Breast 2nd seed (Chupkov 1st)
200 IM 1st seed by 1.4 seconds
100 fly 3rd seed (Pakhamov 1st, Lazano 2nd)
50 back, 1st seed (Ulrich .22 behind)
50 free 2nd seed behind Chalmers, Fannon within .11)
50 fly 1st seed (Khloptzov .10 behind)
50 breast (like what??) 9th seed
So yeah, he can win golds, but he is in tough battles in all but 1 race really.
The Chinese seem to have put in their B team, a little disappointed
On August 30, I hope Michael has a vacation planned.
Not to mention that he had possibly 40 races at nationals and jr nats, along with about 26 at jr worlds. I only had about 16 at each meet
Ok. This is the most impressive event schedule I’ve ever seen in my 6.5 years in the sport (and I’m only 13)! One major short course meet I had, I had prelims and A finals for the 50 free, 200 free, 500 free, 50 breast, 100 breast, 50 fly, 100 fly, 100 IM, and 200 IM. I was top 5 or six in everything but the 200 free and 2 wins in the 50 and 100 breaststrokes. After 3 days, I get back to school on Monday and I nearly fell asleep in every class, and the whole rest of the week I was out with a head cold. This repeated about a month later am with 50 and 100… Read more »
I don’t like his schedule. It’s insane! I really like MA but i’m think he makes a mistake.
His best chances are in 100 breast, 100 fly and 200 IM, I think. And he swim the finals of two of them, them semis of the other and plus the final of 100 back in the same evening session!!!!. It’s crazy.
I hope I’m wrong but i cant see him winning any individual gold in olympics events, and maybe, just maybe, in someone of the 50’s
So he is racing in all 4 strokes, plus the medley. Is this unprecedented, for swimmers his age and in this kind of meet?
I hope we will see some good underwater shots of his swims, especially the 50 free. I never liked the part of his freestyle stroke which is visible from above, but clearly, having seen his times, he must be doing something very special under the water.
ps I also got the feeling that there was a bit of covert advertising in this post, especially the third paragraph. This is just your average reader’s opinion.
Really excited to see what Michael and the rest of the team can do in Singapore! Agree with some commentators that MA’s schedule is too full to produce amazing results across the board; I feel the experience gained from such a demanding schedule will pay off in the long term. I still predict one or two big drops from him. Good Luck Team Andrew!