WILSON Andrew

General
RETIREMENT PLANS
He plans to retire from competitive swimming after the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo to study for a master's degree in mathematical modelling and scientific computing at the University of Oxford in England. He was set to start in 2020 but deferred his studies for a year following the postponement of the Games. "I could see myself swimming for another year [due to the postponement of the Games] because I know that I'm going to miss it once I'm done. I'm pretty happy I got another year in the sport." He says his interest in motorsport led him to choose to study in Oxford, close to where a number of Formula 1 teams are based. "Geographically, Oxford is in teams' backyards, so there's just more networking opportunities, things like that. Also I was born in London and I've always wanted to go back for an extended period of time. Outside the classroom it's going to be a really great experience. I'm going to learn a lot culturally in addition to in the classroom." (LinkedIn profile, 08 Mar 2021; swimswam.com, 20 Nov 2020; SwimSwam YouTube channel, 20 Nov 2020)

A DIFFERENT PATH
Unlike most US national team swimmers, he did not compete at NCAA Division I level. Instead, he chose Emory University, a Division III programme. He credits summer training with Eddie Reese, head coach at the University of Texas at Austin, for his improvement during his college years. "I looked at a couple of Division III schools and Emory was what I liked. My main focus was school at that point. I loved the school, but also the swim programme. I talked with Eddie and liked the programme [in Texas]. In Division III, your coach can't train you out of season, and I was looking to train with another college programme in the summer. I didn't realise it was possible until it happened. In the summer of 2015 when I went 59.6s [100m breaststroke] for the first time was when I realised it was pretty real now. I probably don't look back on it as much as I should. Every once in a while, a kid will come up to me and tell me they are a Division III swimmer. I always love that. Division III might not be as fast as Division I, but the kids are still working just as hard and putting in a lot of time." (swimmingworldmagazine.com, 08 Jul 2019)