The Scotsdale Aquatic Club, perhaps looking for new competition, traveled all the way to College Station, Texas for the Gulf Coast Senior Championships this weekend, and they were rewarded by the very fast pool at Texas A&M in the form of two National Age Group Records from 14-year old Ryan Hoffer.
Hoffer first swam a 20.78 in prelims to clear the 2001 swim of Kyle Bubolz by a mere .01 seconds. In finals, he put a bigger gap between himself and the mark with a 20.45 to place 1st overall against mostly high school competition. Wisconsin commit Cannon Clifton, who has been the star of this meet, was 2nd in 20.50.
Also in this meet so far, Hoffer tied with Gray Umbach for 15th on the all-time age group list with a 1:40.89; Umbach grew up only 45 minutes from College Station and made a similar impression on this meet at the same age.
Hoffer’s splits on that 200 free:
22.4, 25.6, 26.5, 26.23
Capping off his evening, Hoffer won the 100 back in 50.05, tying him for 4th on the all time list. He’s still a ways off of Umbach’s record in that event of 49.20 that he did as a freshman in high school at Texas’ State Championship meet.
Wow! Despite my knowledge and feelings about his team, this is a fan page and the article is about a great achievement by a “swimmer”. Id like to see us keep it that way and celebrate our sport and athletes not air our differences. That is one reason the USA Swimming website blog page was shut down some years ago. Congrats to you Ryan from myself and Arizona Gold on your excellent swims!
Congratulations Ryan. Its about supporting swimmers regardless of team affiliation – excellence in sport is just that – excellence in sport. Looking forward to your great future swims.
Looks like did not enjoyed the NAG record. I did.
Congratulations to Ryan and SAC on a job well done.
Ps: why did you not sign your posting?
Daniel Leblanc, Montreal, Canada.
Congratulations to Ryan! I see how he swims and I can tell that he had a great start! but look how strong he looks and He has done an awesome job! One day I will break a national record.
I was there! His under waters got it for him he went just about 15 meters under water off the start and came out a good body length ahead of Cannon who’s swimming was slightly faster. But dang this kid is one gifted kid and has a heck of a future ahead of him!
His uncle being on staff at Scottsdale does not affect his training, his uncle has been too preoccupied with his high school coaching that another coach had to be brought on to fill his position. I’ll admit that some of the coaches at Scottsdale aren’t the best, but they try their hardest to make every swimmer the best they can be.
The team itself isn’t very unified, but the coaches are at least trying to fix that.
20.45 for a 14-year-old swimmer! Impressive time. Congrats to Ryan Hoffer.
And yes Michael Andrew will probably destroy this time in the months to come. He was in 20.94 in Minneapolis and he’s just 13. For those who follow his young career I have seen he will swim at the junior nationals next week.
Michael Andrew was a 20.9 in Minnie… crazy to think what he’s going to do to even this new record. Not to take away anything from Ryan, I’ve seen him swim before, definitely very talented.