Carson Foster Heading to World Championships as Reliable Veteran Presence for U.S. Men
National titles proved elusive for Carson Foster last week in Indianapolis, and two of the defeats would have been heartbreaking if not for the nature of a selection meet, where two per country make the team. Aiming for a fourth consecutive selection meet win in the 400 IM, Foster built a lead on the breaststroke leg before becoming the latest swimmer dealt the Bobby Finke experience as the three-time Olympic champion in distance freestyle stormed ahead.
Two days later, Foster’s training partner Shaine Casas jumped ahead of world-record pace in the 200 IM while Foster gradually worked his way into contention. He split 27.89 on freestyle, making up three tenths on Casas but coming in three hundredths behind, 1:55.73 to 1:55.76.
“Shaine has been so much fun to train with,” Foster said. “He’s become one of my close friends as well. I think it makes it more fun that we swim the race almost completely different. It makes it almost easier because I’m not always basing my race off of him. I think sometimes I struggle when I swim the same race plan as someone because I’m always comparing, but when I can race Shaine, and I was saying to myself before the race, ‘Stay in my lane. Stay in my lane.’ That’s what I need to do when I race against him.”
As a whole, Foster’s string of runnerup finishes can be attributed to swift performances by his domestic rivals rather than the 23-year-old faltering in any of his events. His times were all among the best of his career, including a second-place finish to Luca Urlando in the 200 butterfly (1:55.70) where he fell just three hundredths off his top time ever. Foster will be the longest-tenured member of the 800 freestyle relay at this summer’s World Championships, and his Nationals performance in the 200 free was a best time (1:45.45), but it was only good enough for fifth place.
“Sometimes it’s hard to be super pumped with second, but for how much talk there’s been about the U.S. men struggling so bad, I went 1:53, 1:45, 4:07 and 1:55, and I didn’t win a single event here, so the U.S. men are strong,” Foster said. “I think that was a really encouraging week of swimming for all of us, so I’m really excited for Worlds.”
Carson Foster — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Set to swim on the American “A” team for a fourth consecutive year, and the previous three appearances have all resulted in at least one individual medal. That trend is favored to continue as Foster currently ranks top-three in the world in all three of his individual races, with the only swimmers better his fellow American representative and, in the 400 IM, world-record holder and Olympic champion Leon Marchand.
Foster has made a successful coaching transition over the last year. After the retirement of legendary Texas men’s coach Eddie Reese, Foster is now working with his successor at Texas, Bob Bowman. The transition has brought about increased volume in training, with noticeable effects. “My mom was getting a little nervous in the fall when I was Facetiming her,” Foster said. “She was like, ‘You need to eat more.’”
Comparing the methods of his two accomplished mentors, Foster noted that Reese “gave us so much freedom to respond to how we’re feeling and adjust off that” whereas Bowman’s meticulous technical planning inspires trust, especially given his track record. Aiding in the adjustment to Bowman’s group has been the presence of athletes who followed him from Arizona State, including Marchand. Consulting with his longtime rival in the medley events gave Foster insights into Bowman’s taper process, always a tricky adjustment under a new coach.
“Eddie where he was one of the closest people in my life, such a special person, so I did really well swimming for him, and then Bob’s added this great next chapter of my career where he’s telling me what to do, telling me how to do it and I feel like I’m learning all over again,” Foster said. “I think that’s been a part where it’s been really good for me. Bob tells me to do something. I’m going to do it, and I’m going to trust that it’s going to work.”
Now, Foster will take an unfamiliar role for the American men, as the established veteran on an unusually-inexperienced squad. Bobby Finke and Michael Andrew are the only swimmers on the team who qualified for a World Championships or Olympics before Foster’s debut in 2022, and Foster, Finke and Luke Hobson are the only swimmers out of the 26 who have captured individual Olympic medals in their career. Now, Foster will try to take some of the lessons acquired from the veteran swimmers absent from this year’s group and pass them on to the numerous rookies on the squad.
“I look back to three years ago to when I made my first international senior trip and having people like Murph (Ryan Murphy) and Caeleb (Dressel) and Nic Fink and all those guys being where I’m at now, where I’m able to lead and help these younger guys hopefully is cool,” Foster said. “I’m going to do my best to use what I learned from them and be a good leadership presence on the team.”