2023 Desert Invitational
- August 26-27, 2023
- Henderson, Nevada
- Short Course Yards (25 yards), Timed Finals
- Meet Results
Another Sandpipers of Nevada distance swimming prodigy peaked over the edge last weekend at the Boulder City Henderson-hosted Desert Invitational.
At a meet where the Olympians and other big names of the team were swimming casual season-openers, 15-year-old Gabriel Manteufel broke through with huge season-bests that will leap him into the eyes of coaches scouting the class of 2026.
That includes a win in the 1650 free in 15:19.70, knocking 23 seconds off his previous personal best (PB), and a 2nd-place finish in the 500 in 4:28.15, which knocked almost five seconds off his previous personal best.
Manteufel’s time drops this weekend:
| Time this weekend | Previous PB | |
| 500 free | 4:28.15 | 4:32.88 |
| 1650 free | 15:19.70 | 15:42.25 |
| 100 breast | 58.43 | 1:02.63 |
| 200 breast | 2:06.31 | 2:16.06 |
| 200 IM | 1:52.72 | 1:58.21 |
Manteufel, who has been with the Sandpipers for years, really began his surge over the summer. In long course, for example, he dropped from 4:09.4 to 4:00.3 in the 400 meter free, earning a Juniors cut at Futures.
The rest of the Sandpipers’ elite crew eased their way into short course at the meet.
17-year-old Dillon Wright was the only swimmer to beat Manteufel in the 500, swimming 4:27.33. He also posted a 1:52.04 in the 200 IM.
Claire Weinstein won the 500 free in 4:38.74, beating-out Katie Grimes‘ 4:40.91. The two combined for six wins across the two day meet.
Grimes’ results:
- 50 free – 23.43 (2nd place – personal best)
- 200 free – 1:47.74 (1st place)
- 500 free – 4:40.91 (2nd place)
- 100 back – 53.80 (1st place)
- 200 IM – 1:59.70 (1st place)
Weinstein’s results:
- 50 free – 23.28 (1st place)
- 500 free – 4:38.74 (1st place)
- 100 back – 56.67 (2nd plac)
- 200 back – 2:00.56 (1st place)
Other Notable Results
- Major Monroe from the host Boulder City Henderson Heatwave won all 8 events he swam in the 10 & under age group, including 6 personal bests. Among the results were a 57.87 in the 100 free and a 1:03.77 in the 100 back.
- Luke Ellis, who is a member of the highly-relevant class of 2025, swam best times in the 50 free (22.13) and 100 fly (51.32). That’s just a bit of range-flex for the distance specialist who finished 7th at US Nationals in the 1500 over the summer and won four Futures titles.
- 14-year-old Sandpipers swimmer Caraya Rivera won her age group in the 100 fly (57.52), 200 fly (2:07.51), 50 free (24.70), and 200 IM (2:12.19).
- Another Sandpiper, 16-year-old Eleaunah Phillips, won the 100 breast in 1:06.48 and the 200 breast in 2:21.55. The latter was just a few tenths from her personal best.
The fact that Weinstein and Grimes are going times that would’ve scored at NCAAs in the last week of August is INSANE. Also love that it’s not even mentioned until the like 7th paragraph of the article — shows how routine this is for them.
How big of a team is Sandpipers? It seems like they have a lot of top level talent.
Do these kids ever get a break?
2 weeks off
Great story – not sure if it’s swimswam worthy of entire page. I’m going to guess lots of athletes 15-16 are having breakththroughs that will get them noticed. But we know what opinions are like . . . everybody has one
Your comment doesn’t really add anything noteworthy to this article either, but here you are.
This is a super, duper, weird take. Thanks for sharing it.
Great, we can mark you down as preferring less swimming content…
If you are like me, you check this site more than once a day. I like always being able to read something new if I want to. And if I am not interested, I do not click on it!
I can celebrate this young person’s accomplishment and also think that there are other athletes in similar camps who are having break swims/meets worthy of being included in a story. That can’t be controversial? A new story/page with several athletes all doing great things that would earn them recognition from the swimswam community and college coaches would be better. That’s my opinion – not sure why its “super, duper, weird”
Commenters: Why doesn’t SS cover more club level meets and swimmers.
Also commenters: