Produced by Coleman Hodges.
Reported by Braden Keith.
Denmark’s Lotte Friis swam a strong front-half (4:10) en route to an 8:25.07 win to open Sunday’s finals session. Friis was swimming well out in front of the final heat for most of the race, and held a steady margin over runner-up Becca Mann (8:28.82).
3rd place in this race came out of the early heats, and an 8:29.28 from NCAA mile champion Leah Smith. That’s only about a second short of Smith’s best time, and is her best time since Junior Pan Pacs in 2012.
More significantly, its seven seconds faster than she was at this same meet last year, spring-boarding off of a breakout summer in 2014 and ensuing college season.
There was a big gap between Smith and the next-closest finisher, which was Ashley Twichell in 4th place (8:34.06).
