For the third time in a week, Michael Andrew of Indie Swimming has lowered the 15-16 national age group record in the boys’ 100 yard breaststroke. Andrew first broke Carsten Vissering’s 100 breast mark last weekend at Speedo Winter Junior Championships with a time of 52.50 in prelims. Later that day he lowered it to 52.21 in finals.
Now, exactly a week later at the Oklahoma Elite Pro-Am, Andrew has done it again. After a lifetime third-best 52.56 in prelims, Andrew crushed his previous personal best, and the national age group record along with it, with a stunning 51.75 in finals, thus becoming the first 16-and-under to dip under the 52-second mark for the 100 yard breaststroke. He is now tied for 11th on the all-time list.
His splits were:
- 24.06
- 27.69
- 51.75
***Off camera, the race call was from 5-time Olympic medalist Josh Davis, Managing Director of the Mutual of Omaha BREAKOUT Swim Clinic.
Congratulations on the time and breaking the “52” barrier.
After watching the race, and from the point of view of the videographer, the stroke is very ugly, in my opinion. The stroke rate and number of strokes taken for a 100 seemed ridiculous… very fast rate and high number of strokes. While this “may” be good for an scy pool, how will this translate into lcm?
I think he will need to adjust the rate for lcm or he will struggle on the 2nd 50 in a 100; he would, in my opinion, never be able to maintain that rate in a 200 – scy or lcm – where efficiency and strategy are key. Even in the 100 shown,… Read more »
High stroke rate in 100 LCM seems to work pretty well for Adam Peaty (current world record holder) and Cameron Van Der Burgh (defending olympic gold medalist).
Peaty has the most impressive fast stroke of them all with VDB .
I have a hard time believing that there is such a thing as an ugly 51.7 100 breast. Sure it is different than most elite breastrokers but perhaps he might be doing a thing or 2 better than most. I have always marveled at how high he keeps his hips! At there lowest they are just a shade under the surface of the water.
The Dude: I can’t believe he has a future in this sport.
Walter Sobchak: 51.75. Seriously, dude. It may not be pretty, but he’s doing something right.
Donny: His stroke is pretty ugly, Walter
Walter Sobchak: Forget it, Donny, you’re out of your element!
The Dude: But his turnover…
Walter Sobchak: I don’t care about his turnover! Am I the only one who cares about what happens under the water?!
Donny: but long course…
Walter Sobchak: Donny you’re out of your element! I got buddies who died face down in the muck so that MA could swim 51 at 16!
The Dude: The pattern of his swimsuit really tied the pool together.
The 17-18 nag record was 51.76 by Cordes, isn’t it? Michael Andrew already beat it.
Nice dolphin kicks by Cody Miller. Looks to be doing them throughout his race.
Cody is a flyer not a breaststroker so be nice to him
Michael Andrew was scary good in this race. I went back and watched his 100 breast from 2014 Winter jr’s and the 2014 Austin Gran Prix. He has gain a huge amount of power from last year. He was already a beast a year ago. I was surprised to see such a big difference in raw power from just a year ago. Many people don’t realize that MA’s top speed in breast might be the weakest out of the 4 strokes but his back half in breast is the best out of the 4 strokes. He has already been a 32.1 in the second 50 of the long course. VDB was a 31.8 in the second 50 in Kazan. Usually… Read more »
Whoever was recording this overuses the phrase “Oh snap” 😉
Honestly, the one thing Andrew needs to work on is his timing. If you watch Soni or other breastrokers from Trojan you can see that they can change there timing without losing efficiency very easily, which helps for walls. Having him swim next to others who know this is interesting, as against other juniors he looks to good, but against pros he looks like he has room to work on his stroke. If he can get his stroke to a Pro level were he can change his stroke with ease, he could slip into a spot in this event for the Olympics. I’m very curious to see he does next year.
Michael’s breaststroke is vintage Peter Andrew – stay low and long glide. Efficient but will never be top of the class. The rest of the world moved up, especially Europeans, but USA breaststrokers still believe in the glide and looking in front of you. Miller’s technique is much better, but he is, I guess, about 5-6 shorter than Michael. Michael cannot change the tempo without his technique falling apart, same case as with Cordes. I will be cheering for Michael to make the team for Rio though, because USA needs fresh blood.
We’ve had this conversation before. A year or so ago you said he wouldn’t get much better at breaststroke, but here we are. You say he won’t be top class, but as it is right now he will almost certainly break a minute in long course before his 17th birthday, which many people would consider to be world class (a 59.7 made the final at Kazan). Heck, if he goes a 59.7 as a 16 year old and his technique never gets better, he’ll probably end up breaking 59 by the end of his career just by getting stronger with age. It’s past time for you to admit that different techniques work for different people, and that there isn’t any… Read more »
Finally someone who can give the kid some credit for his natural abilities. It seems like people are so critical of this kid and don’t ever praise how great he already is and the possibilities that are ahead of him.
Who was the 3rd place swimmer? He kept up with Miller and Andrew pretty well.
Mike Alexandrov
Nice name, by the way 🙂
And I was referring to the commenter’s “name” — not Mike Alexandrov (who also has a nice name)
Look at Andrew’s kick compared to Miller and Alexandrov. There’s a visible wake coming from his feet, something I’ve never seen before. I really want to see an underwater shot of his breaststroke to see how he does it. He could just be holding himself up extremely high in the water, or it could be a variation on breaststroke kick that hasn’t really been seen before. Does anyone else notice this?
Yep, I had the exact same thought. Would be awesome to see some underwater footage of it some day.
Is it a good thing, though? His kick does seem to be REALLY good, but I’m tryna wrap my head around the fluid-dynamic stuff that making those extra waves is doing.
Someone who remembers their fluid mechanics labs better than I do, feel free to help out hahhah.
Looks like it’s happening because his feet come closer to the surface than the others’. Whether it’s good or not depends on which of these two outweighs the other: the good is that the propulsion would have more of a horizontal (forward) component compared to others whose legs are deeper; the bad is that by being so close to the surface his feet may not be pushing quite as much water. (This is not scientific by any means but I did do my PhD work in fluid dynamics 🙂 )
As Justine Schluntz noticed, his feet are just closer to the water’s surface than other breaststrokers. I would add on it’s because of his ridiculously low breathing position which allows his hips to be higher and thus his kick is higher and should theoretically have more horizontal force pushing back.
Of course a lower body position like this makes the recovery scull not as powerful and there isn’t as forceful a lunge, but his body shape and position seem much more oriented at being straight and maintaining speed while relying on a powerful kick to keep him moving. It’s probably one of the more extreme straight-line breaststrokes I’ve seen, whereas others (like Kalisz) seem to rely a ton on… Read more »