17-Year Old Jeremy Graunke Swims 19.97 in 50 Free at RIO November Invite

2020 RIO November Invitational

• November 14-15, 2020
• Short Course Yards (25 Yard) Freestyle
• Chandler High School Pool, Chandler, Arizona
• Full Meet Results (PDF)

A week after winning the Arizona Division II High School State Championships in the 50 free, Jeremy Graunke went even faster at an invitational hosted by his Rio Salado Swim Club.

Graunke, who is committed to swim at Arizona State next fall, posted a 19.97 in the 50 yard free. For Graunke, who is still just 17, this makes him one of only about 100 17-18s in history to have gone sub-20 seconds in this event.

Of those, only about half have done so at age 17.

At the meet, Graunke also swam new best times in the 200 yard free (3.05) and 100 yard fly (49.86), which are improvements of just over 3 seconds and just over half-a-second, respectively.

His training partner Christian Osterndorf finished 2nd in 20.49, just missing his own best time. Osterndorf will also swim at Arizona State in the fall.

Later in the meet, Osterndorf won the 100 free in 44.49, which was his best time by over 1.2 seconds. He was the Arizona D2 State Champion in the 100 free last weekend, and was 2nd to Graunke in the 50 free.

While Graunke’ 3-for-3 in best times in the weekend’s racing was impressive, 16-year old Evan Nail doubled that effort with 4 wins and 6 lifetime bests swims in 6 races:

• 100 breast – 5th place – 59.29 (1.84 second drop)
• 100 back – 1st place – 51.88 (1.48 second drop)
• 400 IM – 1st place – 400.83 (6.23 second drop)
• 200 IM – 1st place – 1:52.96 (3.49 second drop)
• 100 free – 2nd place – 47.21 (2.12 second drop)
• 200 back – 1st place – 1:55.00 (1.68 second drop)

Last week, Nail was the Arizona Division 1 (big schools) State Champion in the 200 free and finished 3rd in the 500 free. This means that across 2 weeks, he swam best times in 8 different events. Nail is an uncommitted high school junior.