HAAS Townley

General
TRAINING TARGETS
In 2020, he said that starts and turns were his target areas for improvement. "Personally, I can always work on my starts and turns, especially with the competition being in short-course metres. That's something that I think a lot of people are getting used to. Warm down is another one, especially after having just one event per day, it's hard to warm down when you want to get out and cheer on your team. I am working on doing a little more warm down." (digitaljournal.com, 06 Nov 2020)

STRONG FINISHER
He says his ability to dig deep at the end of races comes from a combination of preparation and confidence. "A lot of [my performance] just goes back to training. Obviously every team works hard, but we like to think we train the hardest, so I know I have those months of training before me to help me finish. A lot of confidence can come from knowing that all my training is going to help me finish out. Another part of it is that I always want to be faster." (championsmojo.com, 22 Dec 2020)

COACHING WORK
In 2020 he coached at the High Performance Swim Camp Series, a youth swimming course based in Texas, United States of America. He and fellow US swimmers John Shebat and Maxime Rooney taught a two-day course focusing on butterfly. (fitterandfaster.com, 01 Mar 2020)

NAME ORIGIN
His given name is Francis but he chose to go by his middle name Townley. "It's not a bad thing and it's not anyone's fault. It's something I've had to deal with my whole life. Attendance, for instance - 'Francis Haas?', 'Oh, I go by Townley'. And then, I get to the point where I have to say Townley like four times because people can't understand what I'm saying. It's a unique name." (swimoutlet.com, 24 Jun 2019)