SWIMMING: JOHNNY WATTERSONtalks to the 29-year-old about his eventful career and his determination to make his mark in the European Championships.
ANDREW BREE could belong to that cohort of athletes that houses people like hurdler Derval O’Rourke, sprinter Jason Smyth
They leave their cars in the long-stay car park and hitch a ride to the terminal on the shuttle bus. When they win medals, homilies are written about their fighting spirit and talent. Radio talk is about wishing Ireland could “bottle” whatever it is they have.
Then they are cast back until another Europe, World or Olympic cycle reminds the country of their enduring worth.
A swimming cycle is looming.
Cursed with only ever having one name that occasionally rises somewhat above the waterline, Irish breaststroke record holder Bree is that name. We all remember O’Toole, de Bruin. Bree has been around. He has won medals. He has courted controversy, although six weeks ago when he landed in Europe from California few people noticed. Underneath the radar is a crowded house in swimming.
Bree’s club colleague and training partner, Kosuke Kitajima, was also in France for the Mare Nostrum, a three gala event spanning Monaco, Barcelona and Canet en Roussillon. Kitajima was the double breaststroke gold medallist over 100m and 200m in both the Athens and Beijing Olympic Games.
A Japanese pool star in a country where there are few, Kitajima arrived at practice in the south of France with his entourage.
“He had two agents with him,” says Bree. “He’d this little guy who follows him around. He arrives at practice and he arrives in three cars. He’s got a Bentley. He’s just in a different world. You can see the height of success swimming can bring you.
“Also he’s a mega star in Japan. We taught him how to say, ‘what’s up dude’?”
Last week Bree was not in the “hurt box”, but in “taper time” in a modest hotel in Slovenia at the Irish training camp. From there they moved to Budapest for the European Championships.
The glitzy side of professional swimming remains a curiosity and, at 29 years old, Bree has seen his share. He understands where his place is in the firmament of championship events. He takes the bus, Kitajima the limo. That’s how it is.
Refreshed, he is now ready to push what some see as an ageing body through another campaign and after Budapest there is the challenge of India at the Commonwealth games and after that there is more, much more.
Bree sees the 2012 London Olympics as a reasonable motivation to keep going in a sport that has occasionally bitten him, but one which has become a marriage of sorts.
Importantly, he has moved from Tennessee to California, where coach Dr Dave Salo, has opened up his mind. Since Bree left the comforts of Tennessee University and took up with Salo at the beginning of the year, 29 has become the new 19.
“It’s an Irish thing. People put restrictions on time and age. I don’t think anyone should. I’m at the best stage of my life and I’m loving it. I’m sharp. I’m good. London is so many hundred and something days away. It’s just around the corner,” he says.
Bree has been given new eyes by the man who coached Amanda Beard (seven Olympic medals), Aaron Peirsol (seven Olympic medals), Jason Lezak (Olympic gold) and Staciana Stitts (Olympic gold). Australian freestyle world record holder Ian Thorpe, “The Thorpedo” also doffed his cap for a stint in the summer of 2006.
Salo comes with proven imagination and originality.
“I just e-mailed him. Said I wanted to build a foundation coming into London. I figured the start of the year was the perfect time and felt the move was coming, but didn’t know how it was going to happen,” explains Bree.
“I followed it up with a phone call and he said ‘it would be good to have you here’. I arrived out there and he said how many months are you here for, thinking I was coming out to do a test trial or something. I said ‘til London mate’. He started laughing.
“It’s a professional team. There’s a fee. Every month. There’s about 15 pro swimmers. From all over the place. There are a great range of swimmers too. From all events. It’s not just breaststrokers. He coaches 50m right up to 1500m and his style is so different.
“A lot of swimmers would be swimming 50 to 80,000 metres a week, which I used to do. He said to me: ‘you’re 29. You’ve done all your aerobic work’. Now everything we do here is fast. I train once a day. Two hours in the morning in the water. Then we have land work in the afternoon.
“Before, it would have been two hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon. I’d be doing 35 to 40,000 metres now compared to 60 or 70,000 before.
“He’s a genius in what he does. I wanted to try it out. At least when I finish I can say I trained with Kitajima under the eyes of Dave Salo and I did everything I could do.”
FROM HELENS Bay in Co Down, Bree first came to attention when he won the silver medal at the European Short Course Championships staged in Dublin in 2003. Prior to that, Gary O’Toole was the last male swimmer with the effrontery to excel at that level.
Feted as a springboard to greater things, Bree then slumped and failed to qualify for the Athens’ Games in 2004. Disillusionment with the sport pushed him towards a Bacchanalian student life at Tennessee, one he hadn’t dipped into before.
After a 25lb increase in weight and some decent partying under his belt, disenchantment turned to realisation. Initially embittered with the Olympic belly flop, Bree returned more sophisticated in his thinking.
“It’s like anything. There’s disappointment in life,” he says.
“I just took a break. Maybe I needed that to happen, to take a step back and look at things differently. I said right, do things at college, late nights. I knew it was more mental, getting away from it. I said let’s try these other things out.
“I obviously didn’t like the other lifestyle. Anyone can live like that. I thought I’ve got talent here that I want to proceed with.”
His attitude allowed him step back for perspective and also contributed during the biggest crisis of his career when he tested positive for a banned substance in the build-up to the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.
He qualified for the 2008 Olympics at the 2008 US National Swimming Championships in Indiana by swimming a new PB and an Irish record of 2:13.14 in the 200m breaststroke.
At the British Swimming Championships he swam the 100m breaststroke in 1:01.83, another qualifying Olympic mark. But in the months leading up to the games, it broke that Bree had tested positive for an amphetamine during the European Short Course Championships in Hungry the previous year.
The governing body Fina finally accepted that it was an accidental breach due to taking an over the counter Vicks nasal decongestant in the US, which contained a drug that the UK version did not.
“It was very tough for my family who were in Ireland,” he says. “I remember my sister telling me – she was in Galway University – that she was almost crying when she went into the store one day and it was all over the back of a newspaper. Parents and family got the full brunt of it. I mean it was a story, it was going to break.
“The moment I found out about the actual ingredient I was able to determine what had happened, where it came from.
“Deep down I knew it would be a process to show how it happened. Deep down I knew they couldn’t . . . because there is so much other stuff going on. There are horror stories from previous Olympics.
“There’s stuff going on in the sport for sure so I knew there was no way these guys are going to be banning me for a thing that’s smaller than my pinkie finger and had absolutely no effect on performance. I used it as an ignition event. Something happened in my life to spur me on. My level of training just went up. I used it as a real motivational tool.”
Bree’s new age patter is infectious. His California experience has energised him for the next two years. He arrives in Hungry an elder statesman of the team with an almost childlike openness to possibilities, looking, even expecting a personal best, a medal.
“There was something like 100 -plus world records broken last year. There will be very few if any broken in the next while,” he says, now that body suits are banned. Hip to knees is the rule of thumb.
“My 2:10 (Irish record PB) was with the legs so it wasn’t as hard core as the full suit. I never enjoyed them.
“I’m glad it’s gone back to just the swimmer in the water, not some technological, commercial money making scheme. Suits were going for $600 and were made for about $5 in China.”
Two Olympic Games, a European short course medal, Andrew Bree.
California dreamin’ in Budapest.
Irish Squad for Budapest
Andrew Bree
Date of Birth: March 16th, 1981
Hometown: Helen's Bay, Co Down
Club: Trojan SC, Southern California/ Ards SC
Coach: Dave Salo and Nelson Lindsay
Events: 50m, 100m, 200m breaststroke
School/College: Uni of Tennessee – graduated
Personal Best Times: Long Course: 100m b/s 1.01.76, 200m b/s 2.10.16, 200m IM 2.04.43 ,400m IM 4.30.10
Irish Records Held: (Senior): Long Course: 100m b/s, 200m b/s, 200m IM, 400m IM. Short Course: Junior – 1500m, 800m, 400m f/s s
Chris Bryan
Date of Birth: May 8th, 1990
Hometown: Ennis, Co Clare
Club: Ennis Swimming and Life-saving club/High Performance Centre UL
Coach: Brendan McGrath and Ronald Claes
Events: 5km, 10km open water
School/College: University of Limerick
Year/Course: 3rd year sports science student
Personal Best Times: Long Course: 5km 55.59, 1500m f/s 16.10, 400m f/s 4.05, 400m IM 4.39, 200M b/c 2.08.07, 200 f/s 1.55.04. Short Course 400m f/s 4.00, 1500m f/s: 16.00, 200m b/c: 2.05
Irish Records Held: (Senior): Long Course: 5km: 55.59
Clare Dawson
Date of Birth: 17/08/1987
Hometown: Bangor, Co Down
Club: Stirling University/Bangor SC
Coach: Rob Greenwood and Paul Dennis
Events: 200m freestyle
School/College: Stirling University
Year/Course: BSc Honours Degree in Psychology. Entering into a two-year part-time MSc in Child Development.
Personal Best Times: Long Course:50 f/s 26.20, 100m f/s 56.32, 200m f/s 2.00.48, 400m f/s 4.17.07 Short Course: 50m f/s 25.73, 100m f/s 55.10, 200m f/s 1.57.58, 400m f/s 4.13.37
Irish Records Held: (Senior) Long Course: 200m f/s Short Course: 200m f/s
Ryan Harrison
Date of Birth: 10/06/89
Hometown: Eglinton, Co Derry
Club: University of Tennessee/City of Derry
Coach: Joe Hendee, John Trembley, Paul Donovan
Events: 100m, 200m, 400m freestyle
School/College: University of Tennessee
Year/Course: Junior
Personal Best Times: Long Course: 100m f/s 49.49, 200m f/s 1.47.94, 400m f/s 3.55.88 Short Course: 200m f/s 1.46.6
Irish Records Held: (Senior): Long Course: 100m, 200m, 400m f/s
Andrew Meegan
Date of Birth: 24th May 1990
Hometown: Dublin
Club: HPC/Aer Lingus
Coach: Ronald Claes and Alan Turner
Events: 1500m freestyle, 5km open water
School/College: University of Limerick
Year/Course: 3rd year business student
Personal Best Times: Long Course: 1500m f/s 15.46.79, 800m f/s 8.13.15, 400m f/s 3.57.62, 400m IM 4.35.57 Short Course: 1500m f/s 15.40.58, 800m f/s 8.14.32
Irish Records Held: Long Course: Junior — 1500m f/s, 800m f/s, 400m f/s Senior — 1500m f/s, 800m f/s Short Course: Junior — 1500m, 800m, 400m f/s s
Barry Murphy
Date of Birth: 05/10/1985
Hometown: Dublin
Club: Club Wolverine, Michigan / Aer Lingus
Coach: Mike Bottom / Alan Turner
Events: 50m, 100m breaststroke, 50m, 100m freestyle
School/College:University of Tennessee
Year/Course: Recently graduated with a Degree in Business Administration
Personal Best Times: Long Course: 50m b/s 27.26, 100m b/s 1.01.76, 50m f/s 22.14, 100m f/s 49.76
Irish Records Held: (Senior) Long Course — 50m f/s, 50m, 100m b/s
Gráinne Murphy
Date of Birth: 26/03/93
Hometown: New Ross, Co Wexford
Club: High Performance Centre UL / Limerick SC
Coach: Ronald Claes
Events: Individual Medley, Freestyle
School/College: Castletroy College
Year/Course: 6th year Leaving Certificate student
Personal Best Times: Long Course:200m IM 2.13.64, 400m IM 4.40.88, 400m f/s 4.15.48, 800m f/s 8.36.63, 1500m f/s 16.28.47, 200m b/f
2.13.66
Irish Records Held: Long Course: Junior — 200m 400m IM, 200m b/f, 200m b/s, 800m 1500m f/s Senior — 200m IM, 800m 1500m f/s, 200m b/s Short Course: Junior — 100m b/f, 800m f/s Senior — 800m f/s
Melanie Nocher
Date of Birth: 18/06/1988
Hometown: Hollywood, Co Down
Club: Loughborough University / Ards SC
Coach: Ian Armiger and Nelson Lindsay
Events: 200m backstroke, 200m freestyle
School/College: Loughborough University
Year/Course: 3rd year sports science student
Personal Best Times: Long Course:200m b/c 2.12.14, 200m f/s 2.02.04 Short Course:200m b/c 2.05.62, 200m f/s 1.57.91
Irish Records Held: (Senior) Long Course: 200m b/c Short Course:
200m b/c
