2024 WOMEN’S NCAA SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- March 20-23, 2024
- Gabrielsen Natatorium, Athens, Georgia
- Short Course Yards (25 yards)
- Meet Central
- Psych Sheets
- SwimSwam Preview Index
- Live Results
- Live Stream
- SwimSwam Pick ’em Contest
WOMEN’S 200 MEDLEY RELAY
- NCAA Record: 1:31.51 – Virginia (G. Walsh, A. Walsh, L. Cuomo, K. Douglass), 2023
- Meet Record: 1:31.51 — Virginia (G. Walsh, A. Walsh, L. Cuomo, K. Douglass), 2023
- American Record: 1:31.51 – Virginia (G. Walsh, A. Walsh, L. Cuomo, K. Douglass), 2023
- U.S. Open Record: 1:31.51 – Virginia (G. Walsh, A. Walsh, L. Cuomo, K. Douglass), 2023
- 2023 NCAA Champion: 1:31.51 – Virginia (G. Walsh, A. Walsh, L. Cuomo, K. Douglass)
Top 8:
- Virginia (G. Walsh, Nocentini, Novelline, Parker) — 1:31.58
- Ohio State (Funderburke, Bach, Zenick, Ivan) — 1:33.09
- Florida (Runnels, Mayne, Peoples, Cronk) — 1:34.30
- Cal — 1:34.55
- Tennessee — 1:34.64
- Texas — 1:34.74
- USC — 1:34.81
- Stanford — 1:35.10
Virginia’s Gretchen Walsh swam the fastest 50 backstroke split ever with a 22.10 to lead off Virgnia’s 200 medley relay to a win on night 1 of the 2024 NCAA Championships.
All-Time 50-Yard Backstroke Splits
- Gretchen Walsh– 22.10 (2024 NCAA Championships)
- Maggie MacNeil – 22.52 (2023 SEC Championships)
- Gretchen Walsh – 22.54 (2023 NCAA Championships)
- Gretchen Walsh – 22.65 (2023 ACC Championships)
- Katharine Berkoff – 22.76 (2022 NCAA Championships)
Walsh was the fastest performer last year for just a few minutes as she swam a 22.65 at the ACC Championships just moments before Maggie MacNeil swam just over a tenth faster at the SEC Championships on the same night in February 2023.
This also becomes the first time that the backstroke leg of an NCAA-winning relay has been faster than the butterfly leg. Two years ago, Gretchen Walsh was close to Lexi Cuomo’s butterfly split. Walsh led off in a 22.81 while Cuomo split a 22.72.
Tonight’s relay was just off of the NCAA record. Virginia broke the record a year ago swimming a 1:31.51 and they swam a 1:31.58 tonight.
G.Walsh in Paris 2024: 50 free, 100 free, 100 fly.
100 back?
this is legitimately 50 free Dressel-like at this point. As far as I can tell, the all time rankings look like this:
Walsh 22.10
MacNeil 22.54
Berkoff 22.76
Smith 23.18
Curzan 23.26
White 23.35
Bootsma 23.36
When Dressel when 17.63, the second fastest ever was 18.47. by just talking about time margin that’s much larger (0.84s vs 0.44s)… Converting that to percentage and it’s even bigger 4.8% vs 2.0%.
If you look strictly at how they compare to the #2 times at the time that’s true, but I also think that MacNeil and Berkoff are also SCY revolutionaries (at least with sprint backstroke for Berkoff) that are just at a higher level than any of the men’s 50 free competitors were. Like even if Crooks were 5 years older and was going 17.9s in 2018, it wouldn’t diminish how much Dressel was still ahead of everyone else
One of the other comments below mentions a data point that supports this, where the overall record prior to MacNeil was 23.36, which Gretchen is now 1.26 seconds faster than. That was set in 2016 and chopping 1.26 seconds off a 50… Read more »
Do you realize all the amazing swimmers who swam the 50 scy?
I could say the exact same about the 50 back – Gretchen is over a second faster than swimmers like Regan Smith and Claire Curzan. That’s inhuman
But that’s a bunch of people bringing that record down, not just one like Dressel.
my point is just that compared to the “average” top end 50 backstroker, Gretchen is far ahead of the pack as Dressel was in the 50 free.
The top 5-15ish 50 female backstrokers cluster around the 23.3-23.6 range while the top 5-15ish 50 male freestylers back in 2018 and before clustered around the 18.6 to 18.8 range.
Proportionately, Dressel and Walsh are about the same compared to those ranges
Eh, never really seen that as the comparison before. It’s usually always record vs previous record.
it’s more resistant to outliers. If you made a box and whisker plot of the top 25 or however many swimmers (pre 2019 for the men’s 50 free), Dressel and Walsh probably look like they’re at similar positions
The SCM world record of 25.25 is looking pretty soft right now. G Walsh would totally hit 24.6-24.8.
I disagree. I think she’s borderline WR, but she wouldn’t blow it away by that much
Maggie MacNeil is the world record holder and she just smoked Maggie’s fastest ever split. She’s also a similar level long course backstroker to Maggie so you can’t make an argument the extra 2 strokes each lap would be in Maggie’s favor.
she honestly left time on the table with the swim too. starter held them too long so start wasn’t great (beyond the normal criticism of her starts) and turn was very long. 21 high was easily in play
What are the odds this will beat at least one men’s split next week?
it’ll beat the UVA mens split…
Last year men’s ncaa. Slowest split was 21.7 (Michigan). Pretty close
2024 men’s ACC’s she beat Duke’s guy
🤯
there are going to be girls at this meet who don’t go 22.10 in the 50 free…..
This record was 23.3 not very long ago (5 years?) insane
Just looked it up, it was 23.3 before Maggie went 23.0 in 2020, now we’re almost at 21 lol
Hopefully she doesn’t get steamrolled by O’Callaghan this summer but idk
Let’s make Swemmer’s GW trolling a drinking game. Everyone take your first shot. Alert your emergency contacts bc if it’s anything like ACCs it’s gonna be a long weekend for your liver.
Already got the punch ready 😎😎😎😎
Heck ya pour one out alcoholic hepatitis see you in the icu brothers.
Would love to see MOC try and do it in the pool that actually matters
She already has, twice
She is too scared to come swim Gretchen in scy
Nobody else on the planet cares about SCY so cope
The best swimming country in the world does. So that is all that matters
Scy doesn’t matter 🤡🤡🤡