Michael Brinegar
Make no mistake about it, Michael Brinegar would rather be in Paris this week competing for the USA for a second consecutive Summer Olympics.
Instead, thanks to a cruel twist of fate, Brinegar is back home in Columbus training in the pool at Donner Park for what he hopes will be a big comeback in 2028 — if not sooner.
Brinegar, who had been found guilty of blood doping in 2022, was cleared by an independent arbitrator last year. However, the US Anti-Doping Agency appealed the ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sports, and the CAS ruled in favor of the USADA and instituted a four-year competition ban.
Brinegar, who maintains that his blood levels were affected by having COVID at the time of the tests in question, among other key factors in what he calls a flawed process, plans to appeal his ban.
“I talked to my lawyer, and I won’t be hearing from CAS until after the Olympics,” Brinegar said. “So I have wait for them for their full reasoning to see how we can move forward with the appeal. So that’s why I’m not really sure what the plan is moving forward, other than taking classes at IU.”
A 2021 Olympian while a student at Indiana University, Brinegar turned pro in 2022. He plans to return to the Bloomington campus this fall to finish his degree in fitness and wellness, with a minor in coaching.
“I’m looking forward to getting started with that again,” Brinegar said. “I can go there and take my classes, and I can focus on being a full-time student and then I can go in and practice at the (indoor) or outdoor pool whenever they’re open. I don’t have to worry about issues with training time then because it’s open to the public.”
Because of the competitive ban, Brinegar is unable to swim with teams or in pools affiliated with USA swimming. But with the pools at IU and Donner being public, he is taking advantage of those.
At Donner, he has been swimming between 3,000 and 6,000 meters four times a week.
“Since I don’t know when I’m going to be able to race again, I’m just kind of keeping it easy,” Brinegar said. “I haven’t been doing as much as I normally do. I’m trying to keep myself in somewhat good shape so hopefully when all this is over, I can be ready to get right back in and be where I was at before.”
Brinegar competed in the 400 freestyle and 800 freestyle at last month’s Olympic Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium. He found out the day before he was to swim in the 1,500 freestyle preliminaries that his clearance by the independent arbitrator had been overturned.
“It was tough at first,” Brinegar said. “I took over a week out of the water and just getting back in, I felt like I had completely gotten out of shape. Right now, I’ve had a pretty decent schedule coming in four times a week. So I’m starting to feel good in the water again.”
Since he had already served time for a ban prior to his initial hearing with the independent arbitrator, Brinegar’s ban — if not overturned on his appeal — likely will end sometime in late 2027. That would enable him to compete in the 2028 Olympic Trials for both the Open Water and pool events.
“When I initially was going through this process, if I lost the initial appeal and continued on, they were going to include the time of the test (in July 2022) through December of 2022,” Brinegar said. “So that’s another decent amount of time. So it should be like three years and three months.”
Brinegar made the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in the 800 freestyle and 1,500 freestyle. One of his teammates from The Swim Team in southern California, David Johnson, captured the second-and-final qualifying spot for the USA in the 1,500 freestyle. Another TST teammate, Marwan El Kamash, will be competing for Egypt in 800 freestyle, 1,500 freestyle and 10K open water event.
Beyond that, Brinegar has a few other former teammates from IU and from his time training at Ohio State that he will be keeping an eye on this week.
“I’m going to watch,” Brinegar said. “I’m still very supportive of my teammates. I really am excited for them, and hopefully, they do well. It’s going to be really tough watching some of the races, but I’m going to use it as motivation to look forward to 2028.”
