Michael Andrew is one of the headliners at the Schroeder YMCA A+ meet in Brown Deer, Wisconsin this weekend, and on Saturday night he’s already broken a National Age Group Record in his first of three swims.
Andrew won the 100 yard free in 44.16, which broke his own record of 44.73 set in a time trial at the Oklahoma City Pro-Am in December of 2013. In fact, it crushed his old record, and in fact was fast enough that if Andrew were to repeat it in 3 months after his birthday, he’d be in the top 10 of the 15-16 age group already. Ryan Hoffer’s 44.81 is the second-best all-time in the 13-14 age group.
What was really cool about this race is that Andrew, unlike most 13-14 age group events he swim, wasn’t swimming alone. Daniel Krueger from the McFarland Spartan Sharks in Wisconsin dropped two seconds over the course of the day to take 2nd place in 45.03, which puts him third on the all-time list. That makes this 100 free easily the fastest 1-2 finish we’ve seen from two 14 year olds in U.S. history.
Andrew just missed his first record of the meet on Friday, where he was a 3:54.30 in the 400 yard IM. That was just .07 seconds shy off the National Age Group mark in that event.
Still to swim on Saturday he has the 100 breast (he was a 55.5 in prelims) and the 200 IM (he was a 1:48.4 in prelims), and he’ll then have a go at the 50 free, the 200 fly, and the 200 free on Sunday.
I noticed that there was another 14 year-old that also went under the 4 minute mark as well in his heat. There are some quick swimmers out there!
I hope Michael Andrew comes to Jenks for the Sectional meet. Clean air and a really fast pool, and a month more training. He set his 11-12 50m free NAG record here two years ago.
Branden, I thought you were going to do a feature on USRPT including others around the country using the method. We use it with our high school girls team.
The 44.73 was not from winter nationals it was done at the OKC Elite Pro-Am (but WAS done in a time trial).
We will see a sub 20 second 50 free this weekend from him. Before he ages up……will we see a 46 second 100 fly? Imagine! Just imagine if he does that. He just might!
45 percent of Swim Swam readers vote that his training is just a “fad”
I don’t think USRPT is a fad, but I also don’t believe that it will revolutionize swimming. Chances are that Michael would be successful with most training methods being as talented as he is, USRPT has obviously been pretty good for him over the past couple years and hopefully it continues to yield the same results.
99% of “experts” didn’t belive in Tesla but today we accept his ingenious inventions for granted. Let’s try Rashall’s method, it works!
That 3:54 is wicked fast, and he was 54.80 on the breaststroke in finals! It will be exciting to see what kind of times Michael throws down at his last short course meets as a 14 year old.
This article must be false. So many have opined that Michael’s training methods would never give him success in the 400IM that this news article must have a typo or be fabricated somehow.