Fueled by Phelps, Can Michael Andrew Reach His Potential in 200 IM? Not This Year at Worlds

Michael Andrew (right) with his father and coach, Peter Andrew, at the U.S. International Team Trials -- Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

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Can Michael Andrew Reach His Potential in 200 IM? Not This Year at Worlds

Almost one year ago, Michael Andrew was on the verge of producing an historic swim as he turned at the 150-meter mark of the 200 individual medley at the U.S. Olympic Trials. He was an astounding 1.21 seconds under Ryan Lochte’s world-record pace, and Lochte’s decade-old mark of 1:54.00 was coming under fire for the first time in years. Andrew did not need to match Lochte’s blistering finishing speed to become the first man under 1:54, but he instead faded badly, his 29.96 freestyle split the slowest of all semifinalists. His time was more than a second back of the world record at 1:55.26.

Andrew had all the strokes, even freestyle, as he would go on to finish second to Caeleb Dressel in the 50 free two days later. But at the end of the 200 IM, Andrew’s stroke completely collapsed, even his timing and breathing. Could he put together the finish necessary to break the world record? With his first three lengths, the freestyle merely needed to be average for a record-breaking swim.

The next day before the final, the man who had captured 200 IM gold at the last four Olympics chimed in. Michael Phelps attributed Andrew’s deficit to a “training error.” Throughout his career, Andrew has almost exclusively trained race-pace, and Phelps opined that the all-out, all-the-time methods mean Andrew has trouble controlling his speed and cannot dial it down when he needs to, such as the first 50 meters of the IM. Phelps argued for additional training geared toward the 400 IM to help Andrew finish the 200-meter race.

“I just think to swim a good 200, you have to train for the 400. To swim a good 100, you have to train for a 200. So when you see somebody who has an amazing 150 and their stroke — I say ‘fall apart’ in the nicest way possible at the end of the race. I know how it feels,” Phelps said. “When you’re slipping water like that, I feel like that’s a training error. You’re not giving yourself that chance to have repetitions in training that you’re going to feel the last 25 meters. If he finishes in 28-anything, he’s going to break the world record. His breaststroke was 32.1. Are you (kidding) me?”

But over the next month-and-a-half, Andrew never improved upon that Trials semifinal performance, and he never closed the gap on Lochte’s world record. In the Trials final, he was just five hundredths slower at the 150-meter mark, but he faded even worse on the final length to a time of 1:55.44. In the Olympic final, Andrew led through 150 meters and was again under world-record pace, but he completely collapsed on the free, even worse than at Trials. His split was 30.69, more than two seconds slower than any other swimmer in the field, and he ended up fifth, his time of 1:57.31 more than a second outside the medal mix.

“I think it hurt worse than it looked, and it looked pretty bad,” Andrew said that night in Tokyo. “It’s just disappointing. Obviously we’ve been working really hard on that. But now we go back to the drawing board and we figure out what we can do three years from now, if I swim that event three years from now. It’s one of those races where I knew I had to be fast to the 150.”

Six months later, Andrew acknowledged the input from Phelps and seemingly committed to putting in the training necessary to put together a full 200 IM. In an appearance on the “Inside with Brett Hawke” podcast, Andrew reiterated the challenges of that 200 IM Olympic final and called it “an emotional race to watch.”

Andrew told Hawke, “We are training longer now. We’re not relying just on repetitions of 50s at 200 pace, but we’re going to start doing broken 200s, broken 150s, 100s at pace. We realize that in order for me to learn how to close that race, I’m going to have to, like Phelps said, train for the 400 in order for my 200 to be good. And I hate admitting that because it would be nice to know that I could train for the 200 like a 100 guy of stroke, but it only works up until the 150. I don’t want to go my whole career thinking, ‘I could have broken the world record.’”

Andrew added that even if he repeated a 1:55 in Tokyo and won an Olympic medal but still finished poorly on the freestyle leg, he would have been disappointed. He plans to continue focusing on the 200 IM “for now,” although he admitted that he does enjoy training for sprint 50s and 100s more.

“I realize with my talent, there’s too much potential in the 200 IM to not give it everything for a few seasons,” he said.

But Andrew will not attempt to fulfill that promise this year, not at the upcoming World Championships in Budapest. Andrew will compete in Budapest in the 50 and 100 breaststroke, 50 and 100 butterfly and 50 freestyle, but he skipped the 200 IM at the U.S. International Team Trials in late April as that race conflicted with the 50 free on the final night of competition. Chase Kalisz’s winning time of 1:56.21 was a full second adrift of Andrew’s best form.

Andrew has a chance to win a medal in each of his events in Budapest, especially given the absence of many big names this year (such as Adam Peaty), so odds are that he wins at least one individual medal. He will be favored to bring home a gold medal as part of the U.S. men’s 400 medley relay (at least as a prelims swimmer). But Andrew’s diverse skill set lends perfectly to the 200 IM, so it’s a bummer for swimming fans that he will not compete in that event and try to show improvement from his 2021 disappointment.

The world record remains within his grasp for the next few years, but will the allure of the sprint events prove enticing enough to keep Andrew out of the medley? Of course, Andrew has control over his event lineup and deserves that control, and he was hardly the only 200 IM specialist to take a pause on that event in 2022. The same day he skipped the event at International Team Trials, women’s Olympic bronze medalist Kate Douglass also passed on the event to focus on the 50 free. But if Andrew can find the desire for a serious return to the 200 IM, that could lead to a special performance.

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Hmm

1 year ago

Or…. the same ol’ same ol’……

-1