A severe Ohio winter weather warning, that threatened to stall day 2 of the Miami Invitational at Miami University on Friday couldn’t cool off the action inside the natatorium, as Denison’s Damon Rosenburg swam a 54.08 to break the NCAA Division III National Record in the men’s 100 yard breaststroke.
The junior from Leesburg, Virginia topped a field in a meet that includes Division I and Division III opponents, and placed him ahead of Emory’s Andrew Wilson’s 55.53 as the top seed. The swim was more than a full second improvement from Rosenburg’s 55.29 that was his best time coming into the meet; he was 5th at last year’s NCAA Division III Championship meet in the event, and is the two-time NCAC conference champion.
Though the staff at the College of State Island is still sorting through exactly which records are to be erased, as of now the name on the books as the old record is a 54.27 from their Pavel Buyanov, done in 2009. If Buyanov’s swim is erased, then Rory Buck’s 54.30 from the 2011 NCAA Championships would stand as the record that Rosenburg broke.
Only one swimmer who was faster than Rosenburg last season returns to Division III this season, and that’s Occidental junior Steven van Deventer, who was a 55.21 last year as a sophomore. Wilson is the third-best returning swimmer in the race, so this is a good NCAA preview between those two.
He just broke it again: 53.61 in finals.