2020 U.S. Open Saturday Session: Swims of the Session

2020 U.S. Open Swimming Championships

• Thursday, November 12-Saturday, November 14
• Multiple locations
• LCM/timed finals
• Where To Watch US National Team Members
• Streaming Info/Races to Watch
• Meet Central
• Saturday Combined Women’s Results
• Saturday Combined Men’s Results

Well, we made it. After four sessions at nine locations, a U.S. Open like none before wrapped up earlier today. With a lot of the big domestic stars either competing in the ISL (Caeleb Dressel, Lilly King, etc.) or not racing at all (Nathan Adrian, Katie Ledecky, Simone Manuel), there weren’t a ton of especially fast times at the top end, but once again, we saw some big swims out of teenagers, as well as a few interesting results from others.

For the second day in a row, arguably the biggest swims came from a pair of teenagers. In Richmond, 13 year-old Thomas Heilman broke the 13-14 National Age Group record in the 100 free. Heilman was close to OT cuts in all three events he swam this week.

Also in Richmond, 17 year-old Torri Huske went 54.04 to swim the fastest 100 free across all sites. That time moves her to #4 all-time in the 17-18 age group. Teens took four of the top five spots in the 100 free, with Gretchen Walsh (54.37) and Claire Curzan (54.93) finishing 2nd and 3rd overall, and Kate Douglass (55.24) taking 5th overall.

Over in Irvine, 12 year-old Kayla Han moved into the top ten all time in the 11-12 age group rankings in the 200 fly with her time of 2:20.58.

On the “older” side of things, 29 year-old Austin Surhoff netted an OT cut, and swam a lifetime best, in the 100 free with his 50.19, again in Richmond, taking 12th overall. Surhoff’s previous best time was a 50.40 from 2013. Surhoff, currently an assistant coach at Johns Hopkins, won the 200 IM at NCAAs as a freshman and made the final in the 200 IM at the 2016 Olympic Trials.

National Team Roundup

We’re not going to cover every swim by a US National Team member here, but we’ll mention the ones who finished near the top of the combined standings, or had otherwise notable swims. 

• National teamers Erica Sullivan (16:04.37), Ashley Twichell (16:18.11), and Ally McHugh (16:30.40) took the top 3 spots in the women’s’ 1500 free.
• It was a similar story in the 200 back, where Phoebe Bacon (2:09.16), Katharine Berkoff (2:10.12), Kathleen Baker (2:11.38), Regan Smith (2:11.74) took the top 4 spots, and Alex Walsh (2:13.18) finished 6th overall.
• Veteran Mallory Comerford placed 5th overall in the 100 free with a 55.24.
• Madisyn Cox (2:27.55) and Micah Sumrall (2:30.03) placed 1st and 5th in the 200 breast.
• Regan Smith may own the world record in the 200 back, but she’s a very strong butterflier as well, winning with a 2:08.61 today. Charlotte Hook (2:10.90) took 3rd and Torri Huske (2:14.03) took 7th.
• On the men’s side, Bobby Finke (15:09.14) took 1st in the 1650, Jordan Wilimovsky (15:30.38) was 4th, and Michael Brinegar was at 6th 15:34.62.
• US Open record holder Ryan Held (49.00) took 2nd in the 100 free, and Kieran Smith (49.93) placed 8th.
• Clark Beach took 2nd overall in the 200 back with a 2:00.21.
• Veterans Andrew Wilson (2:09.83) and Cody Miller (2:10.22) took the top two spots in the 200 breast just as they did in the 100 breast yesterday.
• Zach Harting returned from competing in the ISL to take first in the 200 fly with a 1:57.82, while Carson Foster, not primarily known as a butterflier, took 7th in 1:59.26. (Harting emphasized in a recent Instagram post that he followed all proper travel, quarantine, and testing procedures from his travel to Europe to racing in Indy).
• And while he didn’t finish near of the top of the results, we’ll note here than Ryan Lochte, the former world record holder in the 200 back, finished 24th overall in that event with a time of 2:03.83.