Swimmer Eric Shanteau is cancer-free and swimming faster than ever

Cancer-free Eric Shanteau back to swimming fast

INDIANAPOLIS — Eric Shanteau is swimming faster than he ever has, diving into the water every day knowing that he’s cancer-free.

That’s gratifying news to the 25-year-old breaststroker who was diagnosed with testicular cancer just weeks before last year’s U.S. Olympic trials.

He kept the stunning information to himself while competing for a spot on his first Olympic team. Shanteau earned a spot in the 200-meter breaststroke, finishing 10th in Beijing with a personal-best time.

Then he returned home to Atlanta for surgery. After a recovery period, Shanteau resumed training in Austin, Texas, with a goal of making the world championships.

He’s four laps away from a trip to Rome later this month.

Shanteau became the second American to swim under a minute in the 100 breaststroke, clocking 59.89 seconds to make him the leading qualifier going into Tuesday night’s final at the U.S. national championships.

“It gives me a lot of confidence,” he said before adding, “It doesn’t matter what happens this morning if I don’t do it tonight.”

The top two finishers qualify for the world meet.

Since March, Shanteau has posted personal bests in his signature events, the 100 and 200 breaststrokes. His 100 time in the morning preliminaries lowered his previous best of 1:00.09.

He wore the X Glide suit by Arena for the first time Tuesday. It’s one of the suits approved by swimming’s world governing body for competition this year.

“Obviously the suits are going to help out, but regardless of what suit I wore, I knew I was going to be under a minute this week,” he said.

With Brendan Hansen taking time off, Shanteau is poised to move into the role of dominant American breaststroker that Hansen has owned for the last several years.

Shanteau wants more than just to compete in the individual breaststroke events in Rome. He is aiming to succeed Hansen on the medley relay team, and likely needs to win the 100 to ensure he would swim in the final in Rome rather than just in the prelims.

Just before traveling to Indianapolis, Shanteau went for a final round of blood tests that confirmed he is cancer-free, the 10th month he can celebrate such welcome news.

But memories of his recent past are never far away.

“There’s still that thought in the back of your mind, ‘What if there’s a recurrence?’” he said. “It’s been a difficult past eight or nine months. I have to live with it the rest of my life.”

The disease had already hit home for Shanteau, whose father Rick battled lung cancer at the same time his son was diagnosed. The elder Shanteau is in Indianapolis this week to cheer on his son, and now needs only occasional chemotherapy treatments.

“He’s doing really well,” the younger Shanteau said smiling.

Happily, Shanteau can say the same about himself.