Irvine (United States) (AFP) - Michael Andrew, in the spotlight since turning professional at the age of 14, is ready to take his swimming career to the next level, and the Pan Pacific Championships are just the beginning.
"I do feel like this is kind of the kickstart of my adult professional career," Andrew said in Irvine, California, last month after winning four national titles and booking his berth for the Pan Pacs and next year's World Championships in South Korea.
"I definitely think it gives me a lot of credibility."
While Andrew was famed for his rewriting of the national age group record book, plenty of pundits predicted the unorthodox "race-pace" training methods used by his coach, his father Peter Andrew, would translate into senior-level success.
"It's been a long road," said Andrew, who typically swims workouts of about one-third the distance of most elite swimmers. "We went through a lot of interesting feedback from the swimming world."
Andrew captured his first senior national title in the 50m butterfly, "the first race where I cried afterwards," he said.
His stated aim is to be "the best in the world at all four 50s," and he won the 50m breaststroke and 50m freestyle in Irvine as well.
But since only the 50m free is an Olympic event, it was his 100m breaststroke triumph that Andrew admitted "gives me a lot of credibility".
It also makes him the likely choice to swim the breaststroke leg in the 4x100m medley relay. Although his winning time of 59.38sec was just the ninth-fastest in the world this year -- and wouldn't have qualified for last year's World Championships -- Andrew believes he can rise to the relay challenge.
"You swim the fastest on relays because you're swimming for the team, and I've been able to experience that a couple of times in the World Junior Champs," he said. "It fires me up. I know how fast I swam there, and I know there's certain things I can still improve on to get faster."
