Team Triumph Swim Club in Missouri Adds Michael Andrew to Coaching Staff

Team Triumph Swim Club in Columbia, Missouri has added Olympic gold medalist Michael Andrew to its coaching staff.

Andrew, who trains at Arizona State University, a 5-hour flight away, will make monthly trips to the Midwestern club. Associate head coach Luke Davis says that Andrew will fly to Columbia once a month to coach swimmers at practices, working on USRPT, technique, mentality, and all other aspects of swimming.

“His travel schedule will vary depending on his training commitments and availability; at times it may span multiple days, while on other occasions it may be limited to a brief trip,” Davis said.

Andrew has a long history in Columbia. He built one of the greatest age group careers in U.S. history while training in Lawrence, Kansas, in the same LSC as Columbia teams. That meant a number of LSC and Sectionals meets at the University of Missouri, where he set several National Age Group Records.

Team Triumph trains at a five-lane, 50-meter pool dubbed Olympus about three miles south of the Mizzou Aquatic Center. The pool is open air in the summer and covered by a bubble in the winter.

“We are honored to welcome Michael to our coaching staff,” said Bobby Campbell, Head Coach of Team Triumph. “His knowledge, energy, and passion for the sport will be an incredible asset to our athletes as we continue to build a culture of excellence at Team Triumph.”

For most of Andrew’s career, coached by his father Peter Andrew, he was a strict adherent of the USRPT training method that relied on abbreviated broken repeats swum at ideal race speed. That controversial training methodology carried him to an Olympic gold medal and World Record as part of the U.S. men’s 400 medley relay at the Tokyo Olympic Games, 7 World Championship medals in long course, 13 World Championship medals in short course, 4 World Junior Championship titles, and countless National Age Group Records.

Last summer, though, he struggled at the U.S. Olympic Trials and didn’t make the team. Now he is pivoting to a more traditional, though still sprint-based, training methodology as part of the pro training group at Arizona State under Herbie Behm. Andrew turned 26 on April 18.

A relatively-new club in the Missouri swimming scene, Team Triumph was founded in 2018. Among the club’s top performers is high school senior Tiago Deluca, who was the Missouri High School Class 1 runner-up in the 100 fly last season as a junior. A pair of former University of Missouri swimmers officially represented Team Triumph at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials: semifinalists Jack Dahlgren and Danny Kovac.