In a post-race interview after placing 2nd in the 200 free on Wednesday at the 2013 World Championship Trials, Conor Dwyer had a lot of interesting things to share about his move to Baltimore.
When he first came to town, he was living with the great Michael Phelps while working on getting his own space set up. Dwyer joked that Phelps was looking at minor league baseball, a joke about the attempts by basketball’s greatest Michael Jordan.
He got into some much more serious and detailed conversation after that though, especially surrounding his new training model.
Dwyer says that under Bowman, he’s felt much faster, and that he did more speed work than he did under Gregg Troy, which showed in the personal best he’s swum in both the 100 and the 200 freestyles in the last month.
The Olympian relayed that his former University of Florida coach Gregg Troy was “disappointed,” but that he understood Dwyer’s need for a change after over 3 years in Florida. This is a similar change to the one his former training partner Ryan Lochte plans to make after this year’s World Championships (though unlike Lochte’s plan, it seems as though Dwyer’s full training is now in Bowman’s hands).
Dwyer didn’t have much to add to the Michael Phelps comeback rumors, but he did discuss his new training partner, Frenchman Yannick Agnel, who has also decided to train with Bowman in the last few months. Dwyer reports that Agnel is training well, despite some illness that cost him some water time this year (and jokingly added that Agnel is seriously considering the purchase of a Hummer).
As is typical with this website and the people who comment on it, far too much credit/blame is given to coaches. Athletes are not machines. Coaching + training + talent does not always = great performance. There are a lot of other variables at play and it’s striking to me how consistently that’s ignored here.
It’s a win-win situation for Yannick Agnel and Conor Dwyer. Big freestyle training team!
But is there a video? in your headline you write 400 IM future. What does it mean? Without the video it’s hard to understand. Does it mean he gives up this race or, at the opposite, he will focus on this event in the future? If it’s the second option, I would be very surprised. In my opinion, his best race with 2016 in mind is by far the 200 free. Perhaps the 200 IM just behind. In these 2 races he has the potential and the coach to swim 1.44 and 1.55 in the next years.
Give him 1-2 years under Bowman and training with Yannick for a portion if not all that time and you’ll see a 1:44 from Dwyer. I’m sure Troy appreciates the comments that Bowman is a better coach than he is:)
totally agree with u . With that great training team , he will dip to the 1.44 within one year or 2 .
Why does this move not surprise me? Hmmm. I wonder what his times will be at Worlds?
good move. he seems to be doing well with this new training even in post olympic year.
he had only been with troy for less than 4 years. He came in the summer of ’09…