13-Year Old Claire Tuggle Swims 2:00 200 Free at NCSAs

2017 NCSA SUMMER CHAMPIONSHIPS

Newly-13-year-old Claire Tuggle of the Clovis Swim Club swam another lifetime best and got another win on day 2 of the 2017 NCSA Junior National Championships. On Wednesday, she swam a 2:00.63 in the 200 free, which followed up on her win in the 800 from a night earlier.

Even though Tuggle has almost the entirety of her 13-14 career left to improve upon the time, that swim already bumps her up to 8th on the all-time USA Swimming National Age Group rankings in the age group – right behind Taylor Ruck and Katie Ledecky.

She beat out 2017 U.S. World University Games team member Brooke Forde, who was 2nd in 2:01.07.

Tuggle wasn’t the only young champion to vault up the all-time lists on Wednesday. 14-year old Anna Keating of Machine Aquatics won the women’s 100 breaststroke in 1:10.54. That moves her into 15th place on the all-time 13-14 age group list in the United States. Like Tuggle before her, Keating had a big second-and-a-half drop to take the win.

Other Day 2 winners:

  • Dayton Raider Eric Knowles, who will head to begin his career at NC State after NCSA’s, won the men’s 400 IM in 4:24.46. He held off his teammate Nicholas Perera, who had a slightly faster final 50 but wound up 2nd in 4:24.76.
  • Corey Lau won the men’s 100 breaststroke in 1:02.82, which was a new personal best for him by three-tenths of a second. The Princeton commit didn’t swim at US Nationals in June.
  • Taylor Pike from the RAC AquaHawgs in Arkansas won the women’s 200 fly in the most dominant victory of the night. She swam a 2:11.20 – nearly two-and-a-half seconds ahead of the field. AquaHawgs took 2 of the top 3 spots – her teammate Luciana Thomas was 3rd in 2:13.79.
  • The men’s 100 back final saw another close finish. Bryce Mefford won in 55.39, beating out Alessandro Boratto (55.56) at the touch. The two split their races very similarly, but Medford had just enough of an advantage at the turn to take the victory.
  • The men’s 800 free relay timed final was decided by less than two tenths of a second, with the Dayton Raiders (7:32.80) beating out Allegheny North Swim Club (7:32.96) for the win. Dayton had a 1:50.52 leadoff from Cody Bybee and a 1:51.89 anchor from Eric Knowles, winner of the 400 IM earlier in the night, which was enough to offset Allegheny North’s superior middle legs.

Team Scores After Day 2:

Top 5 men’s teams:

  1. NCAP – 325.5
  2. Dayton Raiders – 324
  3. Rose Bowl Aquatics – 274
  4. Machine Aquatics – 216
  5. Sierra Marlins Swim Team – 212.5

Top 5 women’s teams:

  1. NCAP – 497.5
  2. Suburban Seahawks Club – 244
  3. Academy Bullets Swim Club – 243
  4. Nova of Virginia Aquatics – 236
  5. RAC AquaHawgs – 230

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Swimmer?
6 years ago

She could be big news in 2020

Dee
6 years ago

Is this similar to Van Almsick? She dropped to 1.58.0 at 14 – Interesting to see if Tuggle follows that curve.

luigi
6 years ago

At about the same age, Federica Pellegrini swam the 200 free in 2’03″82 . Another era.

ERVINFORTHEWIN
Reply to  luigi
6 years ago

wow , thanks for the info . This 2 minute time is seriously fast for a 13 year old .

bobo gigi
6 years ago

Almost the sub 2-minute barrier I predicted. But Claire didn’t want that I post another song of Bieber on swimswam. 🙂
Congrats to her. Great swim. Huge swim for a girl who has turned 13 last month! That important time barrier will be quickly broken.
If someone could post a video of her race, I’m very interested. I’ve never watched the new US young phenom in long course so far.

Uberfan
6 years ago

Ruck is one of the top U.S. Age group swimmers but not even a U.S. Citizen

Swimfan
Reply to  Uberfan
6 years ago

So what if she was born in Canada? She’s got American values because she was raised in Arizona. And she’s humble to boot! Taylor Ruck is a hard-working swimmer -her efforts and good coaching at Scottsdale Aquatic Club have helped her progress to become the swimmer that she is.

Swimfan
Reply to  Uberfan
6 years ago

On that note- this story is about an up and commer- not Taylor Ruck. Let’s give props to Claire!

expert coach
Reply to  Uberfan
6 years ago

Ruck does USRPT so i think we can forgive her foreigness.

Syd
6 years ago

Wow! That is fast. I would have been impressed if that was a yards time, but LCM… Wow!

sccoach
6 years ago

Time to go pro!

Hswimmer
Reply to  sccoach
6 years ago

No Andrew

O_O
6 years ago

Claire Snuggle is a beast.

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Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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