Race video edit by Coleman Hodges. Race video is courtesy of USPRT.info.
Recent Adidas Swim-signee, Michael Andrew, was not at the L.A. Invite nor at Athens Sectionals this past weekend, but he did make his own waves at two other events, swimming at both the Colorado Zone 5 in Colorado Springs, Colorado and “Wave the Wheat Invitational” in his native Lawrence, Kansas.
In Colorado Springs, Andrew raced his way to four first-place finishes over the course of the meet, starting off with a time of 23.20 in the 50m freestyle. Andrew added his second and third individual meet wins in the 100m breaststroke and 100m butterfly races, registering times of 1:03.48 and 56.06, respectively. The 16-year old wrapped up the zone meet with his 4th-fastest 50m backstroke performance of 2015 so far, a time of 26.17 to secure the event victory.
Back in Lawrence, Kansas on Sunday, Andrew took on the men’s 100m freestyle event at the Wave the Wheat Invitational where he managed to blow away his own personal best in the event. Coming into the meet, Andrew’s fastest outing was the 51.24 he registered at 2014 Summer Nationals. But, the young talent cranked out a speedy 50.67 in his hometown yesterday to knock over a half a second from that earlier mark, dipping him beneath the 51-second threshold for the first time in his career.
The 15-16 National Age Group Record in the 100m freestyle event still stands at 49.28 held by now-University of Florida Gator, Caeleb Dressel. However, with Michael Andrew having just turned 16 in April and now positioned at the upper end of the age bracket, the NAG record in this race, as well as many others, know their spot on the record books is on borrowed time.
In his defense, that pool looks tiny. Not ideal for under waters. As for the turn, if you’ve ever pushed off with a wave of swimmers 5 m behind you, you know it’s hard, especially in the shallow end.
Also, did he hit the lane line @90 meters?
Also, he seemed to get a hitch in his tempo @ ~70 meters.
I would open that stroke up a bit. His core is doing phelps-style loping free, but his armstroke looks so tight!
High elbows… gotta have them
Congrats to Andrew on a great PB , but quite frankly his stroke looks absolutely terrible . It just doesn’t look technically correct . Can’t ever see him breaking 50 until he fixes the technique ….
Nice swim. His stroke looks super choppy, but not high tempo, kinda unusual.
We should let the guy shave and taper for nationals and then compare him to his peers in his age group. Turning Pro at 15yrs doesn’t make him a 19yr old. And anyway, as a 14yr old, he was still faster than 19yr old Dressel in the 200IM, who is also getting column inches for his PR in the event!!
This is exactly the same kind of stroke he had last year. Or the year before.
Low elbows, hand-led. A bit a-la Agnel if you like, although Agnel’s is much better looking.
If they haven’t corrected it, I guess they believe it’s not so important. It’s weird though. I guess we could take it as evidence that what happens under the water in swimming is more important than what happens above it. I hope one of these days we will get to see how his stroke looks underwater.
So what is his usa ranking in the event??
Michael is a great talent. It’s fun to watch Rushall experiment with him. I know they are making a point not to swim him long equating long yardage with garbage yardage. And in many ways they have a great point to make. I am writing a book with the working title: Perfecting Practice. In this book I agree with Rushall, Salo and many others who think practice ought to encourage perfecting stroke and be swum at the speed, line, rhythm, etc. that will be required in successful racing.
I also agree that the stroke we see here belies that sort of careful training philosophy. His left arm stroke doesn’t seem to be pushing all the way through which causes… Read more »