6-time Olympic gold medalist and 39-time World Champion Ryan Lochte won’t be racing in the 2018 edition of the annual TYR Pro Derby Swim Meet, but he will still have a big role to play. On Monday, the meet’s organizers announced that Lochte would host the event as emcee. In addition to hosting duties for the event himself, he will also hold a clinic and autograph session as part of the broader TYR Pro Derby weekend.
Lochte, who is sponsored by TYR, the meet’s title sponsor, is back training in Gainesville, Florida where he raced in college and for most of his early-career successes. Lochte has built his career on the strength of 200 and 400 meter races, and his best time in the 50 LCM is just 23.35, but he’s had a front-row seat to some of the best freestylers in the country, including the Fraser brothers while at Florida, and training with both Anthony Ervin and Cullen Jones at SwimMAC Team Elite in the run-up to the 2016 Olympic Games.
The meet will employ a “shootout” format: the same one that has taken on a new focus in American swimming after its inclusion in the TYR Pro Swim Series. All 8 swimmers will race in the opening round. The top 4 will advance, then the top 2 will move on to a head-to-head final.
After the initial announcement of 12 athletes, 1 dropped out, leaving 11 current named participants. The event will be held in Louisville, Kentucky from April 27th-28th.
Men confirmed: 1 spot left
- Bruno Fratus
- Kristian Golomeev
- Michael Chadwick
- Andrii Govorov
- Shinri Shioura
- Joao DeLucca
- Michael Andrew
Women confirmed: 4 spots left
- Lia Neal
- Kelsi Worrell Dahlia
- Hellen Moffitt
- Farida Osman
What a great role model!
If he wants to swim at the Olympics, He’s got to go to a meet
Yikes. Lochte is good at a few things, none of which have anything to do with public speaking or insightful thinking/commentary. Whenever he opens his mouth, people cringe and laugh uncomfortably. For the love of all that is decent, please do not foist his commentary on the public.
hopefully he will suck so bad that he will get bad to serious training.
or he surprises everyone and we finally get a Rowdy replacement!!!!
great to see the lochtness monster putting the rio insident behind him. i’m always a fan.
Really hard to gauge where Lochte is with this whole comeback thing. I’m a big fan, but realistically I feel like he’ll swim once or twice, go middle-of-the-pack times, and fizzle out into retirement. Maybe he’s just hanging on for the sponsorships for now. I would love to be proven wrong, but he’s already postponed his comeback meets how many times? First it was that we were going to see him in action at the 2017 US Open, and then he shows up very out of shape and barely squeaks out a sub 2 200 IM. Since then he has scratched every meet. If his official statement said he hoped to be competing at peak level at PanPacs, he has… Read more »
Public poll: Upvote if Lochte successfully returns to elite competition. Downvote if he’s done.
anyone who still holds a world record should be given a large benefit of the doubt, he knows what it takes
@ragner He holds 1 world record and 2 textile records.
He will return to the elite level, but I downvoted because I loathe these upvote/downvote polls.
I think Lochte CAN make a comeback, but only if he WANTS it.
LOLOL. Squeaks out a sub 2 200 im while out of shape.
That should answer your question right there….
So is he retired or not…?