After years focused on sprints and the shorter IM races, including a World Championship in the 100 IM, an early season shift has come about for Michael Andrew in the new year. He opened his 2nd meet of the 2017-2018 season on Saturday with a best time in the 400 yard IM: an event he raced and broke many records in when younger, but hasn’t made a part of his repertoire of late.
He swam the event 3 times, in long course, in 2017 – at mid-season meets, including a best time of 4:26.24 at the Arena Pro Swim – Austin. In yards, he hadn’t gone a best time since his 2014 National Age Group Record swim of 3:52.08.
Racing at a Senior Circuit meet on Saturday in his home town of Lawrence, Kansas, Andrew posted a new lifetime best of 3:49.38 in the 400 yard IM. Not abandoning his more recently-traditional event schedule, he’s also scheduled to swim timed finals of the 200 IM, 100 fly, 50 free, and 100 breast this weekend.
400 IM splits:
- Fly – 50.24
- Back – 56.88
- Breast – 1:04.94
- Free – 57.32
Andrew opened his season two weeks ago swimming the 50 free (20.07), 200 free (1:39.85), and 200 back (1:45.28). The 200 backstroke is another event he hasn’t swum in a while – his last race was in yards was in 2014. His best time in that race is 1:43.15.
Andrew won 3 medals at the 2016 World Short Course Championships, including individual gold in the 100 IM, and is a 10-time World Junior Championships medalist. This summer in Indianapolis he won 3 individual gold and 2 individual bronze medals at the final international-level junior meet he was eligible for: the World Junior Championships.
Im so sick and tired of hearing how good michael andrew is. He is peaked BOTTOM LINE the only way he can get faster is to high the weights and drink some protein shakes throw a lot a bit of preworkout in there and he will start to drop again
I thought the whole article was about how he just swam a best time “Swim Coach”! LOL. Your “tired” of hearing how good someone is? Follow a new site #bitterbetty
Swimswam articles are great, but improvements can happen. The seemingly third party articles about kids committing to colleges are great. Do other sports such as football have this? Challenge: bring swimswam news to all, meaning those that aren’t interested in swimming yet. We are all aware that college swim and dive programs are dying. Bring to the forefront the huge benefits of swimming and low rate of injuries. Montgomery County MD has one of the lowest childhood obesity rates in the country possibly because of the big swimming impact in the entire county (and maybe the entire PVS LSC). Summer swim team is tolerated by the club coaches only because they understand how it feeds their programs. It also breaks… Read more »
Anonomous – want to clarify one thing. Our college commitment stories are not third-party, they are discovered, sourced, researched and written entirely in-house. The vast majority are done by one member of our staff, Anne Lepesant, who puts unbelievable hours into organizing, compiling and covering every college commitment we catch wind of. And while it’s very true that most of these verbal commits won’t have an impact on the NCAA Championship meet itself, the bulk of that coverage does help tremendously in our major college coverage (recruiting class rankings, power rankings, projections, season previews) and allows us to stay up-to-date on changing trends (early commitments, geographical trends in recruiting, what specific programs seem to value) that turn into some pretty… Read more »
I definitely support the Andrews family and what they are doing. It is their family and they are they know what is best for their son and themselves. I do agree with Crooked Donald that Michael should start specializing, whether that is 50 free, 200 IM or even 100 fly. Nothing else will work, including swimming breaststroke events. There is always time for Michael to finish college and be a student – it will be even more fun at age 23-25 when you actually know what you are doing.
Wow. What a bunch of Bitter Betty’s. I’ve long been perplexed by the way people talk about and treat Michael. It’s been going on since we first met them when he was only 9. First it was the rumors of how his parents made him swim 5X a day and 10,000 yards and how Tina and Peter wouldn’t let him go to school so they force the kid to swim non-stop each day. Then when everyone found out that he barely swam 2500 a day the rumors turned to how “insane” their training methods were and how he’d never be any good past age group. When he started excelling in open events it was all about how ridiculous it was… Read more »
I’d say MA is a great swimmer to write about. 44 comments in no time! He draws a lot of interest and is an exciting swimmer to watch. Please keep MA coverage coming!
Yall need to start posting ads for all of MA’s sponsored companies. You’ll get money for clicks and drive more people insane and get the comments up. And then MA can profit too!! Win Win, Win, (lose for the jealous haters)!
Well, if he wants to swim that 200 IM then this is definitely a step in the right direction. While the freestyle split of 57.3 was still a bit… lacking, he was fast through 200 (versus only a 100 or less), and a 1:04.9 on breaststroke could’ve been worse. At least this shows that he does care about his endurance and is working on it. He’s still plenty young so doing this now won’t hurt him in the future.
He’s still young, but he’s still a pro, who’s not going to have a college scholarship and needs to support his swimming. I’m sure his sponsorship deal has much more to do about making the U.S. National team, medal performance at international majors, etc. He’s currently a top 2 50 meter freestyler in the U.S. (faster than Adrian last year). That’s how he made the national team. He’s far, far away from being a top 2 in the 200 IM. He’d be better off spending his time in the weight room to add strength to that skinny frame, and try to do some power cleans in the 260# range like Dressel, or dumbbell bench presses with 150# dumbbells like Adrian.
Wait, he was faster than Nathan Adrian last year but you think he should train like Nathan Adrian? Why would a faster swimmers train like a slower swimmer?
Out in a 50, back in a 57…. remarkable
we need to hear more about his training techniques
How to ruin a sprinter — train for the 400 IM. I get that he’s young, but he’s also a pro. Meanwhile, his main competition in his best events (Dressel, even Held) is doing killer power sets in water and on land. Pretty sure Usain Bolt never ran the mile in a track meet.
Well you know there are these races called 100s that he’s probably trying to get better at and with traditional thinking the way to do that is to be in better aerobic shape so your cruising speed is faster. It is also October the “aerobic” part of the season for many swimmers across the world. Mitch Larkin had a phenomenal 400 IM well before he won worlds in the 100 and 200 back. While he his a pro he still is a kid who is in dire need of aerobic dev aer capacity and aer power work. When you go 21 and 50. In the 100 that’s normally a problem for a “pro” trying to get a bigger contract. Sadly… Read more »
The assumption, which I think is misplaced, is that he has the genetics for great aerobic capacity to develop into a legit top two in the U.S. 100 stroke guy or 200 IM guy. USRPT develops plenty of aerobic capacity for a 100 or even a 200 IM. You can throw yards all you want at Anthony Ervin, Flo Manuaudou, Bruno Fratus, Jeremy Stravius, and they’re still going to be disproportionately slower in 100’s than their 50’s. You can’t teach max vertical jumps, raw speed, and just like those, max aerobic capacity.
Michael does all four strokes pretty well. I think he’s working on his endurance for the 200 IM. There is nothing wrong with swimming an occasional 400 IM. He has said that 200 IM is a goal for Tokyo 2020. And if you think Dressel is just lifting weights and training 50 sprints and 100s…..I assure you that is definitely not happening at UF. Everybody at U of Florida has to be ready to throw down a decent 200 free. In an interview he said he also trains for the 200 IM. In his first meet this season he swam 15 or 16 events in 3 days. Two of 16 events were the 200 free and 200 IM.
And none were a 400 IM. You made my point.
Didn’t Caeleb also go a low 1:42 or something last year in a 2IM SCY?
Where’s his swim swam article?
It’s right here – https://staging.swimswam.com/reece-whitley-opens-2017-2018-season-52-second-100-yard-breast/