Olympic swimmer Michael Andrew secured multiple wins at the 2022 TYR Pro Swim Series meet that was held in Westmont, Illinois. Digital Journal has the recap.
100 meter breaststroke race
In the men’s 100 meter breaststroke race, Andrew clocked 59.05 seconds, which has been the fastest time in the world this year thus far.
“I was very happy with it,” he exclaimed. “To be 59.0 with not a whole lot of speed training at this point in the season – I think it is purely off of that grind of racing.”
“Everything feels great, it is good to have a crowd back, I feel like I have missed that energy, so to come here and see a new pool and new energy is great,” he added.
100 meter butterfly final
In the 100 meter butterfly final, which took place on Friday, March 4, Andrew won first place with a time of 51.74 seconds besting Shaine Casas and Caeleb Dressel, who finished second and third respectively.
On the evolution of his 100m butterfly, Andrew stated, “It’s been weird – we haven’t been doing a bunch of 100-paced stuff. When [the FINA World Championships] was canceled, we were doing a bunch of 400 IM training, but now with Worlds back on, we are back to speed stuff. I hadn’t been training much speed, but it has been nice to race.”
“This is my third meet in a row, so getting to race, I feel like that speed is coming back. This is what I love to do – I love to race with a crowd like this and in a facility like this. Everything is just setting us up for a good [Phillips 66 International Team Trials] in April,” he elaborated.
“The 100 fly is one of those races that I haven’t really had the greatest opportunity to focus on it in a major international meet since I’ve had a busy schedule, but it’s a race I definitely want to swim more,” he added.
50 meter freestyle final
On Saturday, March 5, Andrew won first place in the men’s 50 meter freestyle final with a time of 21.73 seconds.
On this race, Andrew remarked, “That time is ahead of where I wanted to be. I’m very happy with it. I would have liked to go 21.5, but when I got to the pool I realized I didn’t bring a new suit, so I had to use a pretty used suit. I think that maybe threw me off mentally a little bit, but 21.7 is great.”
“I was much cleaner and faster to the 20 meters than I was this morning, so after a good nap, I felt nice and fresh. Now we just build and get ready for [the Phillips 66 International Team Trials],” he said.
At the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, Andrew won a gold medal as part of the Team USA world record-winning men’s 4 x 100 meter medley relay race, where they clocked 3:26.78. Andrew who swam the breaststroke leg accomplished this feat with teammates Ryan Murphy (backstroke leg), Caeleb Dressel (butterfly leg), and Zach Apple (freestyle leg).
To learn more about Olympic gold medalist swimmer Michael Andrew, follow him on Instagram.
