Young American Swimming Stars Compete For More Than Themselves

6TH FINA WORLD JUNIOR SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

The United States won the FINA Team Trophy at the 2017 World Junior Swimming Championships, with the stars n’ stripes earning a monster 1031 points overall. That set the U.S. apart from its next-closest competitor, Russia, by 404 points. Breakout stars such as backstroking phenom Regan Smith and FINA’s Male Swimmer of the Meet, Michael Andrew, helped the U.S. on its way to a haul of 32 total medals, with 12 of them gold.

Hear from the talented young squad in the video below, courtesy of USA Swimming. Daniel Roy, Carson Foster, Andrew Abruzzo and others speak to how Team USA is about more than just ‘swimming for yourself’ and how the team fed off each other’s performances throughout the week.

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Swimmer1
6 years ago

Ok. Andrew Abruzzo is a beast. Not your stereo typical intense competitor on the outside but OMG he won three gold medals at this extremely competitive junior worlds competition just wow.

LaneSwim
Reply to  Swimmer1
6 years ago

Doesn’t really look like a beast to me – and yes a very very good swimmer. grinding the happy look in the clip.

Lone Star
Reply to  Swimmer1
6 years ago

Extremely talented, but it is too bad Swim Swam left him out in the college recruit ranking. Understood all about SCY and relay contribution….see some of WJC swimmers/medalist ranked pretty low…

swamfan
6 years ago

Really nice video compilation!! My jaw nearly dropped (but i guess it shouldn’t have) when MA said he has never swam 1,000 meters before. I find it shocking that a usa coach has not advised him to do longer warm-downs before. Of course, they may have advised him and his dad wouldn’t allow it.

crooked donald
Reply to  swamfan
6 years ago

Warmdown is not “race-specific.” No weights, paddles, warmdown. It all makes perfect sense in USRPT. Until you tie up to a 2:07 200 IM final.

anonymoose
6 years ago

so abruzzo is … 🙂

Danjohnrob
Reply to  anonymoose
6 years ago

Yes, he’s a talented, motivated, well-coached, enthusiastic young athlete worthy of our respect and admiration! I’m sure that’s what your smiling face emoji meant.

anonymoose
Reply to  Danjohnrob
6 years ago

+1

Swimmer1
Reply to  Danjohnrob
6 years ago

I was present for almost every race of the meet and on the male side Andrew Abruzzo is who Iwas most impressed with. Don’t get me wrong there were several amazing swims but he’s at the top of the list in my book.

swimmy
Reply to  anonymoose
6 years ago

Not sure what your emoji means either… Abruzzo is an incredible talent.

Zanna
Reply to  anonymoose
6 years ago

He is cute and energetic ?

crooked donald
Reply to  anonymoose
6 years ago

Mooch-like.

marklewis
6 years ago

I like Andrew Abruzzo’s enthusiasm. He had a great meet, which could be a stepping stone to the WC and Olympic teams.

Robert Finke is also one to watch in the 1500.

expert coach
6 years ago

Regan Smith even sounds like Missy Franklin from 2012 interviews. Both such well spoken and likable gals.

Harry Dresden
Reply to  expert coach
6 years ago

Hopefully Regan’s back holds up…

Danjohnrob
6 years ago

May I ask why my comment wasn’t allowed on SwimSwam?

Admin
Reply to  Danjohnrob
6 years ago

Danjohnrob – there are any number of reasons that can kick a specific comment to moderation. If I were to spend time investigating why each specific comment was sent there (some of the reasons we can control, some we can’t), it would take up most of my day. Rest assured, though, that with patience, all comments that are in line with our commenting guidelines will eventually appear.

Danjohnrob
Reply to  Braden Keith
6 years ago

Braden, Thanks for your reply, but I certainly didn’t expect a response from YOU! I’m sorry to bother you when I know you have much more important things to concentrate on, and I hope you and the rest of the SwimSwam staff who live in TX are doing OK. I was just annoyed because I didn’t feel there was anything wrong with my comment and I was under the impression that participating in the comment section here is encouraged and actually supports the site in terms of advertisements. Frankly, I see a LOT of negativity thrown around here, even negativity aimed at very young athletes, which has inhibited me from participating a great deal in the past, so I’m glad… Read more »

Harry Dresden
Reply to  Danjohnrob
6 years ago

In my experience there are a handful of trigger words that will cause a comment to be moderated. I can’t give you an exhaustive list but as long as you use terminology that is not directly inflammatory you should be okay.

expert coach
Reply to  Harry Dresden
6 years ago

USRPT is a trigger word in my experience. So is MA.

crooked donald
Reply to  Harry Dresden
6 years ago

Apparently, “banging his model wife” is acceptable for SwimSwam, right Harry?

Harry Dresden
Reply to  crooked donald
6 years ago

Apparently so, Donald. Masterful grasp of the obvious there

taa
Reply to  Danjohnrob
6 years ago

use of our current presidents name will get u moderated. haha. I dont see that much negativity on here but some of the college comments on here get a little salty sometimes. Actually the most negative comments are on the para-swimming where everyone accuses everyone else of cheating. Dont ask me how I know that.

Harry Dresden
Reply to  taa
6 years ago

How do you know that?

Harry Dresden
Reply to  taa
6 years ago

But in all seriousness I have no idea what they are I just posted what I consider to be a completely innocuous comment on a different story and it’s awaiting moderation. Could not for the life of me tell you why.

taa
Reply to  Harry Dresden
6 years ago

Actually i know the reason why the comment got moderated. You most likely misspelled your email address and they think you are a new poster. I’ve done this before. I saw the typo and hit enter anyway and the comment got moderated.

Admin
Reply to  Danjohnrob
6 years ago

Here’s the commenting policies. They’re not overly specific, but should give you guidelines.

https://swimswam.com/terms-of-use-privacy/

As was pointed out, sometimes comments are caught accidentally as “ham.” It’s sort of a risk that comes with using programs to help aide in the control process. It just alerts us to comments that may be a risk.

As I said, in most cases these are just alerts, and so long as they’re during daytime hours, we’ll review and get them up quickly.

Danjohnrob
Reply to  Braden Keith
6 years ago

Thanks, Braden. I agree that policy is general and hopefully obvious to the people writing here. I wanted to know more about the things that bump a comment to moderation, but I guess that’s not possible. I hope that you were not too severely affected by Hurricane Harvey!

Danjohnrob
6 years ago

Thanks! I really enjoyed that video. How could anybody NOT want their kids to be swimmers when they see such healthy, positive, mentally and physically strong athletes like these young people representing the USA? I guess I’m biased…

As a side note, Michael Andrew learned the importance of swimming down after his races at this meet? Yikes! I’m a little annoyed that no coach has taken Mr. Andrew and Michael aside and stressed this somewhere along the way, but you’d think he would have picked that up by himself from watching everybody else.

anonymoose
Reply to  Danjohnrob
6 years ago

lol exactly what i thought thats kinda ridiculous that he got so far in his swimming carrer without knowing something so essential

anonymoose
Reply to  anonymoose
6 years ago

*career

taa
Reply to  Danjohnrob
6 years ago

He is still learning the sprinter lifestyle. Once he embraces it he will be unbeatable.

About Retta Race

Retta Race

Former Masters swimmer and coach Loretta (Retta) thrives on a non-stop but productive schedule. Nowadays, that includes having just earned her MBA while working full-time in IT while owning French 75 Boutique while also providing swimming insight for BBC.

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