“I’m just way happier again, like I was at Florida”, says 26-year old American swimmer Conor Dwyer en route to the 2015 FINA World Championships in Kazan. Dwyer is speaking of his relatively new training home of Trojan Swim Club, led by Coach Dave Salo, of which Dwyer has been a member since January 2015.
Dwyer had previously lived a little more than a year in the home of Michael Phelps while training under Bob Bowman at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club (NBAC) beginning in 2013 and during most of 2014. Under Bowman, Dwyer recorded personal bests in the 100 and 200 freestyles and also clinched a 200m freestyle silver medal at the 2013 World Championships.
Despite the success, Dwyer never felt quite at home in the pool in Baltimore. To the Chicago Tribune, Dwyer quite candidly states, “It didn’t necessarily work out the way we thought it would. Nothing to knock Bob and Michael, who have done unbelievable things together, but they kind of had their own thing going on.” Dwyer continues, “I didn’t get along all the way with Bob. We butted heads a little in training. When it comes to multiple Olympians being in the pool at once, I’ve trained in better places.”
For Bowman’s part, he says, “I enjoyed my time with Conor, and I wish him the best.”
Having had prior conversations with Salo about possibly moving to California, Dwyer said, “When it ended up not working with Bob, I knew I would wind up with Dave. The mood of the (Trojan Swim Club) team is more lively.”
Looking ahead to Worlds, Salo says of his new protegé, “We tangentially talk about Conor making the podium, but we’re not putting a huge focus on that. The most important thing is for him to come out of this year confident that the decisions he made about where he is training and who he is training with are right, because I do things differently than Bob or Gregg [Troy].
“Conor is looking good and training well. I don’t expect him not to swim well. If he can improve on what he has done to this point, it would be a step in the right direction”, Salo continued.
Dwyer is slated to swim the 200m freestyle and 200m IM events in Kazan, along with at least the 4x200m freestyle relay.
I’m not sure about this but didn’t Agnel Mellouli train with Bowman for a period of time. I’m not sure if this was an experimental phase of trying out new coaches but they eventually left and so did Lochte in leaving Gregg troy. Not all swimmers can have the luxury of having the same coach for their entire swim career. This happens on all levels of swimming.
I forgot about Melluili in my list. You are right about Agnel. He left NBAC as well as Mclean and Luchsinger.
As my father once said, Baltimore is the Providence that never had a chance.
It has less now .New July record for homicides – 45 . Pharmacies were looted during the riots with 90,000 volumes of prescription opiates stolen These are now on the new PC -no -police -drug -patrolled turfs.
Behind the liberating of consumer goods seen on camera the real motives are the pharma raids .
So what you are saying is that Baltimore is a big city? LOL
I’m a big fan of Phelps and Bowman, but I can see where it would be hard for a world class swimmer to pick NBAC over some of these other clubs. It’s not the nicest facility and Baltimore, is well, Baltimore.
Did we really need to know that?
You don’t really need to know anything on this site, it’s mainly for entertainment purposes 🙂
I wish him to put a great relay leg on the 800 free relay , a great 200 IM and a very fast 200 free .
Judging by his instagram account, dude loves southern cal over baltimore… Can’t blame him
Connor won’t be satisfied with any team or coach. He’s a talented swimmer but is searching for the magic bullet- and he won’t find it at USC.
I really hope his new home with the Trojans pays off…the US needs him to step up to the next level; even more so than in Barcelona. He needs to be the next 1.44 guy for the 4×200 team to defend their title in Rio.
We can’t keep relying on Phelps and Lochte to carry that burden…they have been doing so for over a decade now! I still can’t believe that they have maintained that kind of speed for so long!