Florida Virtual Championships – Site 1 (Sarasota)
- December 11-13, 2020
- Selby Aquatic Center, Sarasota, FL
- Short Course Yards (25 yards)
- Results on Meet Mobile: “2020 Florida Virtual Championships – Site 1”
- Live Stream (Sarasota Sharks Youtube Channel)
16-year-old Liam Custer of the Sarasota Sharks completed his sweep of the distance events at the Sarasota site of the Florida Championships by destroying Sean Grieshop’s 1650 free 15-16 National Age Group record by almost 8 seconds, touching the wall with a best time of 14:37.86. This was nearly a minute faster than Custer’s previous best which he set at the YMCA Nationals in April of 2019. Grieshop set the NAG at 14:45.40 in 2014, a record that had stood since 1984 when it was broken by Jeff Kostoff.
Here’s how the two races went down, including their 200 yard splits and 500 yard splits:
| Custer’s Splits | Grieshop’s Splits | ||||
| 100 | 51.64 | 50.06 | |||
| 200 | 53.83 | (1:45.47) | 53.91 | (1:43.97) | |
| 300 | 53.88 | 53.45 | |||
| 400 | 53.82 | (1:47.70) | 53.58 | (1:47.03) | |
| 500 | 54.13 | (4:27.30) | 53.99 | (4:24.99) | |
| 600 | 53.46 | (1:47.59) | 53.05 | (1:47.04) | |
| 700 | 53.67 | 53.65 | |||
| 800 | 53.41 | (1:47.08) | 53.95 | (1:47.60) | |
| 900 | 53.28 | 53.95 | |||
| 1000 | 53.49 | (4:27.31) | 54.18 | (4:28.78) | |
| 1100 | 53.48 | 54.17 | |||
| 1200 | 53.42 | (1:46.90) | 54.25 | (1:48.42) | |
| 1300 | 53.63 | 54.32 | |||
| 1400 | 53.12 | (1:46.75) | 54.36 | (1:48.68) | |
| 1500 | 52.96 | (4:26.60) | 54.55 | (4:31.55) | |
| 1600 | 52.35 | (1:45.31) | 54.05 | (1:48.60) | |
| 1650 | 24.3 | 25.93 | |||
| Final Time | 14:37.86 | 14:45.40 |
Custer brought it home in a 24.30 in the last 50 yards, 1.63 seconds faster than Grieshop finished his record-setting race in 2014. Grieshop competed at the 2016 Olympic Trials and is currently a senior at Cal.
With this swim, Custer also set a new LSC record by nearly 30 seconds. The previous record was only 6 years old, set by Nazareno Boscaino at 15:05.90 in 2014. Yesterday, Custer broke the 500 free LSC record as well with a best time of 4:18.49. Custer’s performances this weekend place him at the top of USA Swimming’s 18&Under Winter Championships rankings.
Race Video:
How tall is he? I counted 10 strokes/lap with decent underwaters. Very smooth and efficient.
Watch Custer’s 1650 Record Swim Here: https://youtu.be/B6ofHojzJDA
This would have gotten FIFTH at 2019 NC’s. Insane!
Before quarantine, Custer’s best time in the 500 was 4:29.92. Today, he went 2-3 seconds faster than that, 3 times in a row, straight. Crushed his old 1650 time by almost a minute. Hard to put into words that he had such a meteoric rise from being mostly unknown to being a NAG holder within a few months.
Here’s a good stat: prior to quarantine, we wrote about Liam Custer twice: once from last year’s state meet, and once at a last-minute Sarasota time trial heading into quarantine.
Since, we’ve written about him 18 times.
https://swimswam.com/tag/liam-custer/
“Overnight success” 8 years in the making…
Amazing!
That deserves a Boomshakalaka! Impressive indeed!
What the hell…
Absolutely insane swim, especially in how consistently he split it and closed. 4:27.30/4:27.31/4:26.60 followed by a 1:16.74 150 (on pace for a 1:42.3 200). Every split was between 26.4 and 27.0 until the last 100.
Bonkers.