Rising Stars: Assessing the State of 18 & Under U.S. Talent (Men’s Edition)

With much of the summer already over, USA Swimming has already sent swimmers out to a bevy of international meets and championships. We’re already under the one-year countdown to Tokyo, so we’re taking a look at the top 15 swimmers in every event to see where 18 & under swimmers are at. There has been plenty of speculation and analysis of who ranks where in terms of the 2019-2020 U.S. National Team, and the focus on the top six has had us all honed in on who feels like a lock for the Olympic Team next summer and which swimmers are jockeying in the top three or four contenders for more open events.

A look at the 18 and unders here gives us special insight into the younger Americans who have put themselves on the map this summer, and with younger swimmers often comes sharp improvement curves. A widely discussed topic this summer has been the two-year qualification process, much like in 2015, which really just speaks to the year-to-year turnover in talent and times. A 14-year-old sitting at 15th in an event this year could have something huge coming next year to sneak into the semifinals or even a final at the Olympic Trials, which is why we’re digging into this now to put our initial radar up for those fast movers.

This post focuses on men’s events. The women’s edition is available here.

We pulled data straight from USA Swimming to obtain the top fifteen swimmers in each event from the 2019 season, which goes from September 1, 2018, to August 13, 2019, when the data was culled. We had to filter out the non-American swimmers as well as anyone over the age of 18 to get this subset. There may be swimmers who were 18 at the time of their season-best, and they’ve since aged up. Some of the work was done manually, and there also may be errors in USA Swimming’s rankings that we have no control over. Please let us know if there is something we have missed. 

INTERESTING STATS

• Unsurprisingly, DART’s Luca Urlando and Mason Manta Rays Jake and Carson Foster are all over these charts. Urlando is the only 18 & under swimmer on the men’s side with a #1 ranking this season amongst Americans, and he has four events in the top 15, total. Carson Foster also has four events where he’s in the top 15, and Jake Foster has three.
• Jake Mitchell of Carmel Swim Club is looking like the breakout junior swimmer of 2019. In 2018 in the 400 free, he barely ranked in the top 150 in the country at 148th — now, he’s #2. He was also 188th in the 1500 free (now 7th) and 201st in the 800 free (now 10th). Like we said earlier — a lot can change in a year.
• Also coming up big this summer was Matthew Fenlon of Badger Swim Club. He was 2:22 in the 200m fly coming into this season (from age 13). He went 2:08.0 in January of 2019, to 2:02.8 in March, to 2:01.8 in April, to 2:00.5 in May, to 1:57.39 at Nationals. In yards, he was 1:48.00 coming into fall of 2018, then brought it down to 1:45.03 in February. Based on his LCM drops, it feels like he’ll be significantly faster this upcoming season, but his meters time puts him into the top 15 from this season.
• Performances from juniors in the top 15 in each stroke:
  • Freestyle – 14 (50/100 – 1, 200/400 – 4, 800/1500 – 9)
  • Backstroke – 4
  • Butterfly – 3
  • Breaststroke – 6
  • IM – 6
• There are plenty of freestylers in the distance events, but only one (Hamilton Y’s David Curtiss) in the 50 or 100 free.
• Despite Urlando’s #1 ranking in the 200 fly, the stroke is not well-represented by junior talent in the top 15 right now.
• Tbanks mostly to Urlando and the Fosters, the IM events look pretty solid, too, tied with breaststroke with six events represented.
• The youngest of these young guns are 16-year-olds Joshua Matheny and Matthew Fenlon. Matheny is top 15 in both breaststrokes.
• If the Olympic team was chosen right now based on regular selection procedures, Urlando (200 fly, 4×200 free relay) and Mitchell (400 free) would make the team (though Mitchell, as the US #2, doesn’t actually have the Olympic “A” cut yet. Carson Foster would be fairly close with his #4 ranking in the 400 IM.
• Every Olympic event is represented here by at least one junior – except for the 100 free. The U.S. is pretty okay in that department right now, though.

JUNIORS IN U.S. 2018-19 TOP 15 – BY EVENT

JUNIORS IN U.S. 2018-19 TOP 15 – BY RANK