2025 U.S. World Trials Previews: The Men’s 50 Breaststroke Field Is Wide Open

2025 U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Tuesday, June 3 – Saturday, June 7, 2025
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Indiana University Natatorium
• LCM (50 meters)
• World Championship Selection Criteria
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results

Men’s 50 Breaststroke – By The Numbers

• World Record: 25.95 – Adam Peaty, Great Britain (2017)
• American Record: 26.45 – Nic Fink (2022)
• 2023 U.S. Nationals Champion: Nick Fink – 26.74
• 2025 World Aquatics ‘A’ Cut: 27.33

The men’s sprint breaststroke is the discipline where the “changing of the guard” in American men’s swimming is most on display. In the men’s 100 breaststroke preview (published before the psych sheets), we looked at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials final and projected that two of the eight finalists would return to Indianapolis this summer.

That number gets even lower when looking at the psych sheets for the men’s 50 breaststroke. Of course, there were no stroke 50s in Lucas Oil Stadium, but checking this year’s psych sheets against the 2023 U.S. Nationals 50 breaststroke reveals that only one of the championships finalists will be in the field this year.

Michael Andrew

That one finalist is Michael Andrew, who is the clear favorite in this event heading into the meet. He has got far and away the fastest lifetime best, swimming a 26.52 at the 2022 International Team Trials before going on to win bronze in Budapest that summer. He has been sub-27 seconds multiple times, which separates him from the field as the majority of athletes have not broken 28 seconds.

Andrew is not the same swimmer that he was at the 2023 U.S. Nationals. He missed qualifying for the Paris Olympics and has since made a training change, moving to Tempe to train with Herbie Behm and a loaded Sun Devil sprint group. This is his chance to get back on the senior international roster for the first time in several years and even with the pressure that might bring, he’s got a strong chance of doing so in this event (especially now that the stroke 50s have been moved to Priority #1 in the USA Swimming selection procedures).

Andrew has almost a four-tenth lead on the rest of the field this season, bringing a season-best 27.01 from the Fort Lauderdale Pro Swim. That makes him the only American ranked in the top 25 in the world this season and should be a confidence boost for him as he aims not only to qualify for the World Championship team but get back under the 27-second barrier.

The Field

The race is wide open behind Andrew as college swimmers, juniors, and even a handful of veterans aim to qualify for their first senior long-course World Championship team. Adding to the unpredictability of this field is the fact that it’s a 50. Anything can happen in a short race in this chaotic field—any swimmer could pop at exactly the right time and rise above the rest to make the Singapore team. Despite the chaos factor, let’s look at some of the most likely candidates to punch their ticket.

The Juniors

If this year is about turning the page to the next wave of American breaststrokers that will take the stage in three years, let’s start with the juniors.

Campbell McKean ranks as the second fastest American 50 breaststroker this season after his spectacular outing that the Fort Lauderdale Pro Swim. A Texas commit out of Bend Swim Club, McKean swam personal bests in the 50/100/200 breaststroke and the 400 IM. He won bronze in the 100 breaststroke (1:00.40) and placed fourth in the 50 breaststroke with a 27.40, his second lifetime best of the day.

Josh Bey (photo: Jack Spitser)

McKean came into the meet with a lifetime best 28.55 from his opening 50 meters at the Junior Pan Pacific Championships, where he won silver behind Shin Ohashi, who just lit up the Mare Nostrum tour. McKean was 21^st in 100 breaststroke prelims at the U.S. Olympic Trials last summer. His improvements since then combined with the depth of the field have put him in a position to take a major step forward in his career and gain international experience before heading to college.

McKean has pushed the boat out with his 50 breaststroke personal best but several other juniors could make an impact in this final. There’s Tennessee commit Gabe Nunziata, who hasn’t raced an individual 50 breaststroke yet this long-course season, but swam 1:02.08 in the 100 breaststroke at the Richmond Sectionals last month, opening in 29.04. He owns a lifetime best 28.53, again from an opening 100 breast split (this time at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials) and just swam a lifetime best 52.47 100-yard breaststroke in March.

Then, there’s Josh Bey, another 2024 Junior Pan Pac Championship medalist. He won silver in the 200 breaststroke, pulling off a 2-3 finish for the U.S with Willis. Bey has gotten some long-course racing in this spring while finishing up his yards season for his high school and club teams. He raced the 200 breaststroke at Westmont, then raced a couple of events at the RISE Kendall Pickering club meet in early May. Bey’s 200 breaststroke prowess may make it difficult for him to get up to speed quickly enough to finish top two in the 50 breaststroke. However, his 28.41 lifetime best puts him solidly in the middle of this pack of contenders.

Willis a SwimMAC athlete committed to Florida for this fall, logged a 29.36 season-best at the Martha McKee Open a couple of weeks ago. Willis shines most in the 200 breaststroke so this may not be where he’s most focused. However, his 28.80 lifetime best makes him worth watching in this field.

The Indiana Breaststroke Crew

Bey will join the Indiana breaststroke crew this fall and though he’s not yet racing in an IU cap, the Hoosiers still have plenty of representation in this event. All the swimmers in this field but Andrew are entered with 100 breaststroke times, and that puts Brian Benzing at #2 on the psych sheet.

Benzing used his fifth year of eligibility at Indiana this year after four years at Towson. He didn’t have as explosive an NCAA Championships this year as he did in 2024, so he’ll be looking to show off the gains he’s made at Indiana in the long-course pool instead. Even if everyone was entered with 50 times on the psych sheet, Benzing would still be near the top of the pile with his 27.79 split from 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials.

Brian Benzing (photo: Jack Spitser)

As with all the swimmers whose lifetime bests are opening splits (and there are a lot of them) there’s an open question about what they’ll be able to do in the individual event likely after not focusing on it during an Olympic year.

Jassen Yep was the surprise of the 2025 NCAA Championships and after originally saying he was done competing, he’s stayed in the pool and will be in the Indianapolis field. Like Bey and Willis, this event is likely not the best chance at the Worlds team for Yep, a 200 breast specialist. He owns a lifetime best of 28.49 from the 2023 U.S. National Championship and logged 29.35 at the IU Time Trial meet in May. But after the swim of his life in the 200-yard breaststroke at NCAAs, could he surprise us once again?

Yep’s teammate Luke Barr is much more sprint oriented. A versatile swimmer, Barr has a lifetime best of 28.66 from the 2022 International Team Trials, which he rattled at the IU Time Trials with a 28.74. Charlie Egeland swims for Yale during the college season but is training at Indiana this summer. Egeland had a breakout at the yards-based U.S. Open in December and made his first NCAA Championship appearance this March as a relay swimmer.

Egeland hasn’t officially raced in meters this season, but in this field, his 28.24 lifetime best makes him a serious contender not just for the final, but for a World Championship spot.

More College Stars

The Hoosiers do not have a monopoly on the collegiate breaststrokers. Down in Austin, Nate Germonprez spent his sophomore year with the Longhorns developing his breaststroke abilities, which he showed off during the postseason to help Texas win the SEC and NCAA titles. Germonprez did not focus on breaststroke until this part yards season, so it’s intriguing to think about how the dramatic drops he made during the college season could translate to meters. His opening 100 breaststroke split at the Longhorn Invite last month was a 28.51, about three tenths from his 28.27 lifetime best, swum during 2023 U.S. Nationals.

Nate Germonprez (photo: Jack Spitser)

In Tempe, Andy Dobrzanksi fired off a 50-meter breaststroke lifetime best at the Sun Devil Open. He swam 27.66, breaking 28-seconds for the first time in his career. His former lifetime best was a 28.04 from 2023. It was a huge lifetime best for Dobrzanski and puts the Sun Devils in a strong position heading into Indianapolis.

Other names to keep an eye on include UNC’s Ben Delmar, one of the swimmers who helped the Tar Heels rewrite their record books this season. The events he’s raced in the build-up to U.S. Nationals suggest a focus on the 100/200 breast but he could still grab a lane in the final. Then, there’s Minnesota’s Joe Polyak, another 2024 Junior Pac Pacs qualifier, who just swam 28.62 last month, coming .01 seconds from his lifetime best. Texas A&M’s Travis Gulledge has a 28.37 lifetime best from his first 50 meters at Olympic Trials last summer.

The Veterans

Ben Cono (photo: Jack Spitser)

With a 1996 birthday, The Olympic Club’s Ben Cono has the distinction of being the oldest man in this field. He’s had a busy spring, racing at the Sacramento PSS and then heading to USMS Spring Nationals. He only swam the 50 breaststroke in Sacramento—presumably to get a time on the board for this meet—but that split puts him towards the front of the field in terms of season bests. His lifetime best is the 27.87 from his first 50 at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials, where he finished 16^th.

It’s also not a bad idea to keep an eye on Garrett Clasen. He just swam a lifetime best 27.61 at the FMC Spring Into Season club meet, which was his first lifetime best in the event in about two years and his first time break 28 seconds. This is exactly the right moment to be doing that; like Dobrzanski, it shoots him up the ranks in this field and makes him a solid pick to be at the front of the pack in the Nationals final.

SwimSwam’s Picks

Dark Horse – Brennan Coyle: Ben Cono may be the most legendary Loyola breaststroker of the last ten years, but he certainly is not the only solid breaststroker to emerge from that program. This season in particular, the Greyhound breaststrokers were on fire—at their midseason invite, they joined Indiana, Texas, and Alabama as the only programs that had a sub-24 second breaststroke split on their ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ 200 medley relays. Brennan Coyle was a key part of that breaststroke group as a freshman, making big drops in his sprint breaststroke. He owns a 29.60 50-meter breaststroke PB from before arriving at Loyola—a mark that seems on borrowed time based on his yards season.