INDIANA VS. LOUISVILLE, TEXAS
- Friday, 11/8-Saturday, 11/9
- Counsilman Billingsley Aquatic Center, Bloomington, IN
- LCM (Friday)/SCY (Saturday)
- Day 1 Results
- Scores
- Women
- Texas 146, Indiana 134
- Texas 173, Louisville 107
- Indiana 166, Louisville 115
- Men
- Texas 157.5, Indiana 121.5
- Texas 187, Louisville 88
- Indiana 197, Louisville 84
- Women
If you promise to do something kinda crazy, they will click…
Or something like that.
Earlier this week, Indiana alumni and U.S. National Teams Zach Apple and Blake Pieroni made an effort to garner more followers on the Indiana Swimming & Diving Instagram by promising to attempt to swim the first half of a 200 free (LCM) in under 50 seconds if the Instagram account got 18,000 followers by Friday.
Swimmers are by nature something of a masochistic bunch, and apparently the promise of watching other swimmers suffer was too good to pass up. IU’s Instagram account had less than 15,000 followers earlier this week, but now has over 21,000 followers, presumably due to the duo’s promise of self-inflicted pain.
As men of their word, Apple and Pieroni dutifully exhibitioned the 200 free at the tri-meet Indiana is hosting this weekend, and you can see the results below.
According to IU’s post, Pieroni flipped in 49.8 and Apple in 49.9. For a little comparison, Paul Biedermann went out in 50.12 when he set the 200 free world record in 2009. Bidermann, of course, was wearing won the “super suits” that were eventually banned, and split 51.88 coming back, giving him an overall time of 1:42.00, a time that no one has come within a second of since.
Apple and Pieroni, sans supersuits, each had a much rougher go of it on their second 100. The video of that back half is almost exactly a minute long, and misses a few seconds at the beginning and end of the lap, but IU’s Instagram mentioned in the comments on their post that Apple went 1:06.1 on the back half and Pieroni went 1:08.1, giving Apple about a 1:56.0 and Pieroni a 1:57.9.
. Obviously that’s nowhere near either’s best times (1:45.93 for Pieroni and 1:46.56 for Apple), but reasonably close enough to each swimmer’s in-season times that it’s clear the second half was more than just an easy cool down.
They were so busy wondering if they could that they didn’t stop and think if they should.
So they swam a fast 100 to the foot, then a 100 easy. While the 100 time is fast, they didn’t even try to finish the 200…..
Big let down.
Bruh they still went pretty fast, a 1:56 is no joke after going out a 49, especially in season
You can’t see it in the video, but IU has a giant poster of Jim Montgomery on the wall—the first man to get under 50 seconds in the 100 LCM free. I don’t know why, but this somehow makes this feat seem all the more fitting.
Cumerford was +5seconds@150m and +3seconds@175m mark after Pieroni?
I wonder if she beat him? Definitely seems like she’s sub 2:00
Tom Shields has nightmares of this.
but was safe ……so no worries for him 😄
Congrats gentlemen! The equivalent of taking your bat, pointing to right field, and then hitting a home run in that spot.
and then immediately using the same bat to break your own leg
This is just painful 😖