Courtney Bartholomew nearly broke two American records at once at the Georgia Invite on Friday night.
The Cavalier junior blasted a 50.01 to lead off the team’s 400 medley relay, nearly knocking off the legendary Natalie Coughlin American record of 49.97 that hasn’t been touched in 12 years. That’s a lights-out swim that vaults Bartholomew to being the likely favorite for the NCAA title this coming spring. She was 5th last year and is the second-fastest returning swimmer behind Indiana’s Brooklynn Snodgrass.
It’s also a lifetime-best for Bartholomew by seven tenths of a second. For now, the biggest challenge for the junior will be repeating this kind of speed in the college postseason – last year she swam to a lifetime-best 50.73 at the mid-season Ohio State Invite, but couldn’t go faster than 50.95 again that season.
She’ll also have a shot to break Coughlin’s American record tomorrow, where she’ll likely swim the individual 100 back in both prelims and finals.
In addition to Bartholomew’s big-time split, the Virginia relay went on to nearly break the U.S. Open record. Laura Simon (58.17), Ellen Williamson (51.43) and Ellen Thomas (48.23) were all outstanding as the team went 3:27.84, just three tenths off the U.S. Open record Stanford set last spring while winning the NCAA Championship. That mark is also the American record, but Simon is German and Thomas is British, meaning Virginia’s swim would have set the U.S. Open record instead.
We’ll have a full recap of the meet later on tonight. Live results are available here.
Isn’t Ellen Thomas from England? (in addition to Simon being German)
You are correct, nice catch
Stunning!
Wow! So close to the Coughlin’s legendary American record.
Too bad Miss Bartholomew is “only” a short course swimmer. Her LCM record is 1.01.71. Another proof that these are 2 complete different sports. Especially on backstroke. I want to watch the video. Her underwaters are probably huge in that race.
She can still go to Doha to help the US team. The medley relay is on Sunday. 🙂
And as you say, will she be able to swim the same kind of performances in March? We’ll see.
Virginia’s relay time is also stunning. They destroyed Cal. 3.27.85 vs 3.31.25. Breaststroke has again killed Cal chances and it’s usual now (1.00.90 split for Marina Garcia). But… Read more »
Oh, and today the combined to miss 2 Individual NCAA records by .12 and if you count that relay, all 3 combined to miss NCAA records by .45 seconds. Impressive night. Congrats!
All this attention on Leah Smith (and rightfully so) after prelims, and BOOM here comes Bartholomew. I guess we should have seen that coming after she took about 3 seconds off her PR in the 200IM. I wonder how fast she can go without having to do a 200IM prior to her 100 back tomorrow night. Oh, and the 200 is probably her stronger event…
Holy…