US Masters 2026 Spring Nationals
- April 30-May 3, 2026
- Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, NC
- SCY (25 yards)
- Meet Central
- Psych Sheets
- Live Results
The US Masters is underway in Greensboro, and headlining the meet are several former Olympians, including 8-time Olympic Gold Medalist and 12-time Olympic Medalist Jenny Thompson.
2,015 athletes, representing seven countries, will compete in Greensboro, including 300 from the host state of North Carolina.
This is the fourth time that the USMS national championships have been held in Greensboro, and the first since 2021.
Thompson was previously tied with Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin as the most decorated American female swimmers ever at the Olympics, until Katie Ledecky surpassed them in Paris with her silver medal as part of the 4×200 freestyle relay.
Thompson, an eight time olympic champion as a relay swimmer for the United States will be competing, alongside several other Olympians in attendance, including Casey Barrett (1996 Olympian, Canada), Oliver Elliot (2008 Olympian, Chile), Anton Ipsen (2016 and 2020 Olympian, Denmark), Percival Knowles (1960/1964/1968/1972 Olympian, Bahamas), Micah Lawrence (2012 Olympian, USA), Vesna Shelnutt (2000 and 2004 Olympian, North Macedonia), David Wharton (1988 and 1992 Olympian, USA), and Ashley Whitney (1996 Olympian, USA).
On the first day of action, four USMS Records have already fallen. Pacific LMSC’s Heidi George lowered the women’s 50-54 USMS Record in the 1650 free in 17:27.91. Garden State Masters’ Nancy Steadman Martin clocked a new USMS Record in the women’s 70-74 1650 freestyle in 21:11.29. Ipsen, representing the New York Athletic Club, touched in 15:49.19, faster than the previous USMS record in the 1650 free for the men’s 30-34 age group. A relay record also went down on day one as the Rocky Mountain Regional Masters 45= 400 mixed free relay clocked a new USMS Record in the event in 3:33.04.
It is important to note that all records are subject to verification.
Swimming is obviously more of a lifetime activity than many other sports people can participate in, and there’s a path for adult-onset swimmers to start and also compete in National meets. In that regard, masters meets, even local and zone meets, are great in that they can feature Olympians in the same heats and warm-up pools as ordinary people. We see it in some other masters sports, but not with the proximity of swimming. I’ve competed head-to-head against Josh Davis and Vlad Pyshnenko, and talked with Tony Ervin, Matt Grevers, Dave Wharton, Bill Mullikin (1960 200 br Olympic Champ), David Gillanders (1960 silver medalist, 100 fly), and quite a few others. That’s always such a great experience.
Showing up to these masters nationals meets can be fun because you might come across someone who swam in the Olympics!
Dr. Thompson = Legend
I’m such a sucker for nostalgia.
I hope she is having a blast!!!
Dr Thompson!
USA hasn’t won gold in the 4x100F since she was on the 92 96 00 teams. Are her kids old enough to help yet?
Heidi George, holy moly
You got that right! Impressive swim!
I might give away my identity, but I knew her peripherally when I was a high school student in Minnesota. She had already graduated from college, and would come to club practice while visiting her parents for Christmas break. I wasn’t a terrible distance swimmer myself, but she showed up with like a beach swimsuit and no cap and destroyed all of us at every distance free set. It was pretty amazing… So much so that I remember it 30 years later.
When it comes to American swimmers, relays win count as an individual champion.
Jenny Thompson never won individual Olympic gold
But when it comes to non American swimmers, relays never count as a “champion”
Eg. Meg Harris was repeatedly referred to as “Olympics medalist” even though she won two Olympic relay gold.
There’s also other examples.
Tell Phelps his relay Gold medals don’t count at championships… I’ll wait.
They’re referring to the double-standard of not giving the same credit to non-American relay gold medalists. Someone pointed it out a few years ago, and it’s stuck out like a sore thumb for me ever since, along with other subtle slights. Just seems unnecessary to me.
Literally opposite of the point they’re making
Nah it’s just something that Australians obsess over. They just cherry pick whatever they need to in order to be pissed off at Americans/SwimSwam. I’ve learned to ignore it.
They bring up this one Meg Harris example over and over again but like…Loretta just wrote the bio paragraph slightly differently one time and they wanna find something systemic in it.
Examples where Meg Harris was referred to as an Olympic gold medalist:
https://swimswam.com/meg-harris-olympic-gold-medalist-and-world-record-holder-joins-team-finis/
https://swimswam.com/meg-harris-rips-5256-100freestyle-at-queensland-championships/
https://swimswam.com/meg-harris-borrows-mollie-ocallaghans-goggles-last-minute/
https://swimswam.com/olympic-gold-medalist-meg-harris-broke-her-arm-while-riding-a-scooter/
GET EM
USA Swimming should take some notes and learn how USMS does multiple (odds and even heats) livestreams with no issues for 6 days!
Yep
I don’t recall if there were any glitches, but Floswimming provided livestream and post-meet access to race video all the way back at the 2009 USMS SCY meet in Clovis.