2021 ACC Men’s Championships: Day 1 Split Analysis

2021 ACC Men’s Swimming Championships

• When: Wednesday, February 24th to Saturday, February 27th Prelims 10:00 am | Finals 6:00 pm (Wednesday timed finals at 4pm; 1650 prelims Saturday at 4:00 pm)
• Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, North Carolina (Eastern Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: North Carolina State University (NC State) (29x, 6th-straight) (results)
• Streaming: ACC Network
  • Wednesday
  • Thursday
  • Friday
  • Saturday
• Championship Central: Here
• Detailed Timeline: Here
• Psych Sheets: Here
• Live Results

The first night of swimming at the 2021 Men’s ACC Championships was a scorcher, as the top five teams in the medley relay all finished under last year’s winning time, a total of ten relays were under NCAA ‘A’ standard (seven in the 200 medley relay and three in the 800 free relay), and numerous school records fell.

For for viewing ease, here are all the splits from tonight tabulated and sorted. We’ll chat quickly about a few of the split that stuck out to us.

Louisville’s Mitchell Whyte continues to show his speed; last year he led off in 20.82 on the Louisville 200 medley relay that touched first before being DQ’d, and this year he clocked a 20.79, the only man in the field under 21. The Cardinals had an incredibly strong front half, as breaststroker Evgenii Somov split a rare sub-23, with his time of 22.91. Those two times actually put them under U.S. Open Record pace at the halfway point, as Texas went 20.84/22.91 on the first two legs en route to a 1:21.54 in 2017.

Pitt’s Blaise Vera is known for his sprint free speed, but he threw down an incredibly fast fly split, going 19.68, which appears to be one of the ten-fastest fly splits ever.

We’re seeing some fast freshmen over in the SEC, but UVA’s Matt Brownstead is right there too, splitting a 18.45. Had Brownstead split 18.76, the 2nd-fastest time in the field, Virginia would’ve dropped from 3rd to 7th, given how tight the team battle was.

Virginia Tech swimmer Blake Manoff was part of four school records today, setting Hokie records in the 50 back and 200 free while leading off the two relays. Manoff’s 1:32.23 was actually the fastest split in the entire field, including relay splits. That was part of a trend for the day, as four of the six fastest overall splits were actually leadoff legs.

200 Medley Relay Splits

800 Free Relay Splits

*Bold denotes leadoff