After emerging as Team USA’s top 100 freestyle relay option at the Paris Olympics, Hunter Armstrong was initially going to take 6 months off of training before getting back into the pool with his sights set on LA28.
Life had other plans.
After suddenly getting dropped by his primary sponsor in late 2024, Armstrong had to stop training completely, working odd jobs, including swim clinics, construction, and substitute teaching, in order to pay his mortgage. He was going to Pro Swims, but really only competing for the fun of it, having little to no training under his belt. After the Ft Lauderdale pro swim in May, which he thought would be the last meet of his career, a new sponsor contacted him about a potential partnership.
Now with renewed life in and outside of swimming, Armstrong is taking his time getting back into serious training. Not swimming all the time forced the Olympic champion to find out who he was without his sport, and he’s still enjoying that process. Since he has almost no training under his belt, Armstrong is forgoing the US World Trials in Indianapolis, choosing to focus on the Pro Championships in Irvine at the beginning of August instead.
Though it didn’t all go to plan, Armstrong is now back in the pool with his sights set on LA28.
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OK OK people are gonna be mad at me from the last Hunter Armstrong comment I made, but – doesn’t the existence of Nic Fink kinda disprove that my dude couldn’t have kept swimming and held down a full-time job?
Clearly, unexpectedly losing your main sponsor is gonna cause a hell of a scramble, but idk mannn, really not disproving the last thing I said about Armstrong being a bit histrionic at times. (And like, are swimming sponsorships THAT hard to come by that he’d never find another one??)
Fink’s salary and pay even working part time (not sure on his work deal) as an engineer definitely pays significantly more than what Hunter made with his gigs strung together.
And Fink has sponsors on top of that.
Many triathletes on the circuit have high paying day jobs that have some flexibility to train around them.
This is maybe me realizing Armstrong didn’t graduate from college? Otherwise I’m still not getting it.
TYR recently fired their longtime Swim Team Dealer Rep who had been with the company over 20 years. About a year ago, they fired all other reps and made him in charge of the entire country. Then they fired him because “sales are down” in competitive swim. The reason sales are down in swim is because they are now a crossfit brand.
Joseph DiLorenzo and Steve Furniss are class act guys and created a great brand and ran a great business. Sadly, with new ownership for the last several years, the brand is losing market share left and right.
But I hear they make great pickleball paddles!
many D1 college athletes work 4+hours a day, train 3-4 hours a day, go to classes, study, walk and bike to school in rain and snow and in sub zero temperatures, etc. I often wonder how they have any time left to sleep.
They really don’t
I’m sure there are D1 athletes who have jobs that are 4+ hours a day of work, but I don’t know that there are “many” of them.
Competition is the best training plan
Dear Hunter Armstrong,
I don’t know whether you are reading these comments or not..but know that you are special…for me I was always rooting for you and your success..when you won 7 medals in Doha 2024 we got to know how talented you are..2021 to 2024..you made the trail podium finishing 1 st in both 2022, 2023 in 100 backstroke..and every international podium apart from Paris.
Your 100 freestyle is something special and you are among the fastest top 10 100free guys in American history..
Please come back..people always Do!
Heroes rise , heroes fall
Rise again win it all..❤️
I support you 100%. Get after it young man!!!!
He he was training for the Intergalactic TYR Pro Swim Series (Crab Nebula)
To take down Glorpy Nutty-Jones in the 5000 Trilli-Quark Backstroke (Mercury based pool)
Hunter is the only human who can survive direct exposure to mercury based competition pools
He dreams about it ever night… his night mare…
Nutty-Jones, Glorpy …….. 1:39.28
NEW CRAB NEBULA TYR PRO INTERGALACTIC RECORD
Armstrong edged by Nutty-Jones by a whole light-year! DEVASATING
The crowd goes LITERALLY wild. They start to thrash AND it goes haywire
Decided not to
If anyone is interested, I highly recommend reading about track athlete Steve Prefontaine. He was a prominent figure in the 1960s and 70s, known for his strong stance against the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and its restrictive policies that essentially forced athletes into poverty.
There are several films about his life, and Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, dedicated a significant portion of his biography to Prefontaine’s story.
a victim to lifestyle creep
Doesn’t sounds like lifestyle creep at all, sounds like had a job could pay the bills, now he can’t
Sounds like he had “tried to afford basic adult necessities like shelter as a professional swimmer”-creep. The sport needs to be able to better support our best talent. It is embarrassing for American swimming that a swimmer of his caliber nearly had to retire over lack of sponsor support.
Imagine, that the NCAA is now catering to foreign athletes, rather than developing their own high school superstars. It’s all about the money. The United States needs to back their homegrown athletes before they sign athletes from other countries who will never represent us in the Olympics.
What does this comment even mean