The Most Interesting Man in Swimming Is Doing Much less, But Setting Data

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — It’s 7:30 a.m. on a cloudless August day within the heartland, the solar simply cresting the limestone hills that encompass Indiana University. School shouldn’t be in session, and the campus continues to be. As basic rock quietly performs on the loudspeakers on the IU outside pool, two members of the U.S. nationwide swim group barely disturb the 10-lane, 50-meter expanse of water. 

As his swimmers softly splash via the early phases of their exercise, Hoosiers coach Ray Looze holds two items of paper. The one in his proper hand is an 8-by-11 printout of the 5,000-meter follow plan for freestyler and Olympic silver medalist Anna Peplowski. The paper in his left hand, the dimensions of a Post-it observe, is the follow plan for essentially the most attention-grabbing man in swimming, Van Mathias. Total distance of that one: 1,400 meters, a spa remedy of a exercise.

“This,” Looze says of the small scrap of paper, “is the future.”

In a sport constructed on the day by day grind of grueling distance, hour upon hour spent straining lungs whereas looking at a black line on the underside of a pool, Mathias may very well be an avatar of change. He’s out and in of the water in 38 minutes on at the present time, not even lengthy sufficient to prune the fingers, whereas Peplowski plowed on for much longer.

Short, quick, targeted exercises within the water, buttressed by intense power-building periods within the weight room are having a transformative affect on the swimming world. So-called “race-pace training,” which leans on much less heavy yardage, has been round and more and more in vogue for some time, however that is next-level stuff. 

It’s not essentially for everybody. The present greatest swimmers on the planet, Léon Marchand of France and Summer McIntosh of Canada, didn’t get that manner by babying themselves, and so they’re at present coached by the guru of the grind, Bob Bowman. But sprinters—particularly male sprinters—are seeing the advantages of the form of coaching Mathias is doing. Australian Cameron McEvoy, at age 31, took down the 17-year-old world document within the 50 freestyle within the spring, declaring that “more yardage isn’t the answer.” 

Mathias is an adherent to what has been known as the “McEvoy Method.” Indiana dash coach John Long Jr. writes the splash-and-dash exercises for Mathias—and Looze, a hard-charging, high-yardage member of the teaching previous guard, has seen the sunshine.

“I’m the last person on the face of the coaching earth that people would’ve thought would sign off on this,” says the 59-year-old Looze, now in his twenty fourth 12 months because the coach at Indiana. “But this is perfect for him. He keeps getting better.”

How a lot better is the 25-year-old? Mathias has rocketed from retirement and relative obscurity to the American document holder in each the 50-meter and 100-meter breaststroke. Heading into the Pan Pacific Championships this week in Irvine, Calif., the place the highest U.S. swimmers will tackle rivals from Australia, Japan, China, Canada, Brazil and elsewhere, Mathias has the three quickest occasions on the planet this 12 months within the 100 breast and can be No. 1 internationally within the 50.

If anybody goes to set fireplace to standard considering within the sport, it’d as nicely be Van Mathias—a part-time swimmer with a full-time day job as Indiana’s director of swimming operations. Might as nicely be somebody who didn’t compete from April 2023 via June 2025, then metamorphosed from a distance butterflyer right into a dash breaststroker. Might as nicely be a man who shuns the standard full shave, even for the largest meets, competing with a mustache that Indiana icon Mark Spitz would admire.

“I’m scared that if I shave it, I might lose all my powers,” Mathias says with amusing whereas toweling off at poolside. “And my thinking is that confidence is key. Look good, feel good. So for now it’s going to stay.”

For now, halfway via the olympiad between Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in ’28. Mathias is the male breaststroker USA Swimming desperately wants. America had fallen behind in that stroke, and a part of the penalty for that was a historic defeat.

The U.S. had by no means misplaced a 400 medley relay within the Olympics, the nation’s most enduring level of swimming delight. That modified in Paris, when the Yanks had been dethroned by China. Blame didn’t all land on the ft of breaststroker Nic Fink—this was an getting older relay lineup making an attempt to rekindle previous glory—however he was fourth quickest of the eight finalists in a race the U.S. misplaced by half a second. Fink received silver within the particular person 100 breast, however the Americans missed the rostrum within the 200.

It acquired worse final 12 months, after Fink retired. At the 2025 world championships, Americans had been shut out of the eight-man closing within the 50 breast, recorded a fifth-place end within the 200 and a seventh within the 100.

At Indiana, these shortcomings carried larger gravity. Looze has lengthy been America’s foremost breaststroke builder, guiding the legendary Lilly King to world information and gold medals and training 2016 Olympic relay gold medalist Cody Miller, amongst others. Then the remainder of the world surged previous the Stars and Stripes.

“We were terrible as a country in breaststroke and I was contributing to that,” Looze says. “I wasn’t doing anything to help.”

Enter Van Mathias. Through the again door.

The Portland product had been a great swimmer at Indiana for 4 seasons from 2018 to ’22, qualifying for NCAA championships in butterfly and particular person medley races, plus relays, however by no means cracking the highest eight in a person occasion. With a fifth 12 months of eligibility accessible after the pandemic, Mathias and his coaches tinkered with a lineup change. Before the Big Ten championships, they determined to “throw me in some breaststroke and see how it goes,” he says.

It wasn’t a whole reinvention. Mathias credit his youth coach at Multnomah Athletic Club, Alex Nikitin, with instilling high quality approach in all 4 strokes. But altering coaching from getting ready for the perseverance of a 200-yard butterfly (roughly 100 to 105 seconds of ache administration) to the urgency of a 100 breaststroke (50 seconds of fury) was an adjustment.

Mathias made it look simple, ending second at each Big Ten and NCAA championships to Minnesota’s Max McHugh. It seemed just like the becoming cap to his swimming profession.

He moved again dwelling to Portland, working odd jobs and training a highschool group whereas making an attempt to determine what he needed to do with the remainder of his life. Mathias additionally began lifting weights with an uncle and his mother, Nancy Maxwell, who was a aggressive bodybuilder. 

“I was not touching the water at all,” Mathias says. “Only the weights.” 

About a 12 months after leaving Indiana, Looze known as him and provided his director of operations place. Mathias got here again to Bloomington for an workplace job, not a swimming renaissance. But after being across the program and on the pool deck, he determined in the summertime of 2025 to get again in and see what he might do as a completely devoted sprinter.

For the primary time on the Olympic stage, swimming will add the 50-meter stroke occasions apart from freestyle in Los Angeles. That has opened up an entire new vista of alternatives. Having packed on muscle in his time away from swimming, Mathias introduced a brand new stage of energy again to the pool. (He was as much as 235 kilos at one level however now’s round 220, thickly muscled within the chest, arms and quadriceps.)

“If he’s not the strongest guy in USA Swimming, I would be surprised,” Looze says. “He is a monster.”

Muscles apart, Mathias’s comeback was constructed as a lot on curiosity as steadfast perception. Nobody was positive what to anticipate.

“It was an experiment, that’s it,” Looze says. “A short-term experiment. There was no long-term thought.”

The outcomes got here collectively rapidly. Mathias surprisingly made the Pan Pac group at U.S. nationals final summer season, incomes his first spot on a senior nationwide roster. Then the 2026 season has simply been a cascading impact of success, with one nice efficiency after one other.

In 33 swims at official competitions this 12 months, Mathias has posted 21 lifetime-best occasions. Mathias set the American document within the 50 breast for the primary time in a meet in Norway in April, then broke it once more in Indianapolis in June at 26.30 seconds. At the identical meet in Indy, he set the nationwide document within the 100 at 58.01.

After breaking the document within the 50 in Indy, Mathias slung each arms over the lane line and stared into the NBC digital camera for a number of seconds. His face was an impassive masks.

“I was screaming on the inside,” he assures.

Mathias has grow to be a taking pictures star in a notoriously fickle stroke. It’s a unusual movement, usually mastered by quirky individuals. Breaststrokers can come from nearly wherever, born as a lot as made, a uncooked expertise rising up after which generally simply as rapidly receding. (The most outstanding latest instance: Lydia Jacoby, who got here out of obscurity in Alaska with scant expertise and received a surprising Olympic gold medal within the 100 breast on the Tokyo Olympics, and has not been again on a outstanding worldwide stage since.)

The stroke itself is not like freestyle, backstroke or butterfly, far more reliant on timing and rhythm. Like a golf swing, it’s lovely when it’s on. And if it’s off by just a little, it may possibly rapidly grow to be off by loads. Then the thoughts video games set in.

“I don’t have many givens in breaststroke,” Looze says. “It’s a stroke that can literally break your heart because it can come and go for no reason. So we just try to keep an open mind to how we train it, what we do with technique. And we’re always on the lookout for somebody that’s under the radar.”

Mathias is below the radar no extra. The success has been sudden sufficient and new sufficient that the distraction of a day job has helped Mathias cope with it. The director of ops workload is appreciable, with a lot of the top-five nationwide program’s day by day logistics operating via him. Mathias plans and books all IU swim group journey and has a significant hand in recruiting, each scheduling coaches’ journeys to see prospects and each component of campus visits. (The Hoosiers’ exceptional soccer rise has made tickets for recruits and their households on official visits a bit tougher to return by.)

“I’ve tried to distract myself with work and other things to not let that feeling set in,” he says. “I think that’s when I swim my best is when there’s none of that kind of stuff floating around.”

He’ll be concentrating on his facet gig this week in Irvine, making an attempt to win medals within the 50 and 100 breast, the 50 fly and 50 free. There will even be medley relay duties. Mathias might have as many as 10 swims at Pan Pacs. If they go nicely, he ought to be a cornerstone of the U.S. males’s Olympic plans for 2028.

If the less-is-more method continues to work for Van Mathias and others, a phase of the game might have a coaching revolution on its palms. Garbage yardage out, splash-and-dash exercises in. Waterlogged swimmers in every single place might find yourself thanking them for the additional relaxation.

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