The athletes of the United States have elected Michael Andrew, Grace Ariola, Madison Homovich, Erica Sullivan, and Reece Whitley as their captains for the 6th FINA World Junior Swimming Championships that will kick off on Wednesday at the IUPUI Natatorium in Indianapolis. Approximately 630 athletes from 93 National Federations will be taking part in this six-day event; Team USA is comprised of 24 girls and 18 boys. The full USA roster can be found here.
Andrew is the top seed in the 50 free, 50 fly, and 200 IM, and the number two seed in the in the 50 back, 50 breast, and 100 breast. He represented Team USA at the 2015 World Juniors, where he set the Championship record in the 50 backstroke.
Ariola is seeded second in the 50 free, third in the 50 back, fifth in the 100 back, and sixth in the 100 free. Like Andrew, she represented the United States at 2015 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships in Singapore.
Homovich is entered in the 200 fly (sixth seed) and 400 IM (13th). She has been representing her country since the 2014 Junior Pan Pacific Championships.
This is the first national team selection for Sullivan, who is seeded first in the 1500 free and third in the 800 free.
Whitley is seeded third seed in the 100 breast, fifth in the 200 breast, seventh in the 50 breast.
2017 FINA World Junior Swimming Championships, presented by Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. will be the sixth edition of the prestigious competition which was first held in 2006 in Rio de Janeiro.
Congrats to the #TeamUSA captains #FINAWorldJrsIndy – Michael Andrew, Erica Sullivan, Madison Homovich, Grace Ariola & Reece Whitley! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/pVCcq7EWtl
— USA Swimming (@USASwimming) August 21, 2017
I’m surprised that Michael Andrew is still swimming junior.
He did not qualify for worlds thats why. And I believe this will be his final junior meet.
If only he enroll at a college, he could have swum in the WUG swimming against some pretty big names, instead of Junior Wr.
I mean, he’s done jr worlds before, and he is among the oldest to swim in the jr worlds. So why do it again. It’s like he’s quite happy getting stuck in that junior mindset, a far cry from just 2 years ago when not a few people predicted he’d qualify to Rio.
I wouldn’t sleep on this meet. It’s not as though he’s racing at the Missouri Valley LSC Championships instead of WUGs. He’s going to be racing other extremely fast junior swimmers, big names or not. At 2015 WJCs, Viktoriya Gunes posted times in the 100 and 200 breaststrokes that would have won at senior worlds that year. Don’t let the name fool you, there’s gonna be competition.
The post-Olympic year affects everyone differently. Caeleb Dressel has had an absurdly good year, Ryan Murphy has been okay but not great, and Anthony Ervin is nowhere near the condition he was at a year ago. I know a lot of elite swimmers in the U.S. have been swimming lights out this year,… Read more »
Just looked at the results and have a small correction: Gunes would not have won the 100 breast, but still would have won the 200 breast by about 1.5s.
So you are comparing him to Victoriya Gunes who almost broke WR.
Do you believe MA plan to break WR or do you think the competitors in his events are going to swim WR times?
Schoolingftw – You said he should be racing at WUGs, as though a junior meet is beneath MA. VG was mentioned as evidence that this meet is fast. That’s not a comparison at all. I do not understand how you’ve misunderstood that. Does the competition need to swim WR times to push MA? Why is that important to you?
Dudeman – You may be right that he needs to branch out. My point is that it’s way too early to say that either way. What we know is that he was extremely successful in 2016, and that 2017 hasn’t been as good for him *and* also multiple other elite swimmers. Making that call based entirely on his results during a… Read more »
He’s home schooled and not going to college, that is much less stress than any other normal swimmer is facing in their senior year of high school. The issue is what used to work for him does not appear to be working as well now that he is older. He did say he was doing more work in his training so maybe with even more rest he’ll go faster but as we know with USRPT there is not much of a taper and you’re supposed to just swim fast all the time. He needs to branch out and try different coaching and training methods, like many other swimmers do in their careers
Michael Andrew has such a Phelps like physique, just needs to build the muscles up a bit more, but why does he mainly concentrate on 50’s ?
With the speed and stamina he showed on the 200 IM he did a couple of years ago surely venturing into the 200m events would be more suited, I know he is fantastic at 50’s but looks too lean to compete against the real powerhouses if that makes sense…
Sorry, but it does not make any sense.
Some of the finest and greatest sprinters were even leaner and smaller than MA: Earvin, MacEvoy, Sullivan, PVDH
MA just doesn’t have great freestyle technique. Period.
He’s still 18. My bet is he’ll add mass naturally over this quad now that he seems to be done growing, height-wise. I don’t think he’ll ever be big in the same sense as Adrian or some other notable sprinters, just because his frame is a bit more narrow (compare the width of his shoulders to Thorpes when he was still swimming), but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. As has been pointed out, plenty of sprinters have excelled with a thinner physique.
And I’m not sure I buy the logic that because he has a long torso, he should focus on 200’s instead of 50’s. Percent of fast twitch muscle fiber, mitochondrial density, relative capacity of the different metabolic… Read more »
He has room to get a lot stronger but he won’t get much bigger height wise, if at all. The biggest thing he can do to see dramatic improvement is work on better technique. The good news is he has lots of room to improve since he still swims like a 11-12 year old. Not taking anything away from how fast he is, the guy is crazy fast, especially short course but watching him swim side by side with some of the best swimmers at US nats the difference in technique is staggering. If he can figure out how to swim more efficiently and not just muscle through every race he will be so much faster
Reece Whitley will be an outstanding captain, he has shown over and over again what a great role model and leader he is. USA is proud to have him represent us. Congrats to the others chosen as captains also. Go team USA.
The fact Reece Whitley is younger than me just makes me feel so inadequate lol…dude’s a tank
He is just huge !!!
How tall is MA now?
6’5″
Tall enough for sure but hasn’t grown since he was 14 or 15. He does look like he’s hitting the weight room now.
realistically he could win 6 gold medals in just his individual events! tha’ts insane. 50 fr, 200im, 50/100 br, 50 ba, 50 fl. Am i missing any?
Yea, some real events. He should start to branch out of those 50s.
Excited to see what these swimmers do. Will make USA proud I’m sure. Regan Smith should be the captain for the girls though as she is swimming the most events and the best female for USA at the meet.
She is 15 usually they pick the older swimmer even though 17 isn’t that old there are few who swam jr worlds previously
Ok yea but she just went to the actual world championships so that argument is invalid.
Hello/Swimmerz – please adhere to the commenting rules about using multiple usernames in a single comment thread. Thanks.
But she just swam at the world championships…. doesn’t that make her more qualified than people who have been to Jr worlds before…
A captain is about who provides leadership.
Not about who is the “best”.
The “best” swimmers are not always the best leaders (and this is no slam on Regan, I have no knowledge of her ability to lead – just a statement that the elected swimmers have traits their teammates found worthy of being a captain).
Regan is definitely the best swimmer on the women’s side. But at 15 being a leader/captain could be a chore instead of an honor. Especially when some of these swimmers have been to junior worlds before.