SPEEDO WINTER JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS – EAST
- Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, North Carolina
- Prelims: 9 am (ET)
- Finals: 5 pm (ET) – Wed. relays at 6 pm
- Meet Central
- Psych Sheets
- Live Results
- Live Stream
- Day 3 Prelims Live Recap
After melting the 13-14 National Age Group Record books last week, mostly in long course, 14-year old Thomas Heilman broke his first record of the Speedo Winter Junior Championships – East meet on Friday morning.
Heilman swam 46.42 in the 100 yard fly, which knocked half-a-second off the old record of 46.95 that was set by one of the sport’s legendary age group swimmers, Michael Andrew.
Along with two short course records set in a one-session meet appearance in North Carolina last Sunday, after the US Open, he now has three National Age Group Records in yards in the 13-14 age group. He holds 14 National Age Group Records across all courses and age groups.
Splits Comparison in Yards:
| Thomas Heilman | Michael Andrew | ||
| New NAG Record | Old NAG Record | Previous PB | |
| 50y | 21.59 | 21.58 | 22.21 |
| 100y | 24.83 | 25.37 | 25.14 |
| Total Time | 46.42 | 46.95 | 47.35 |
Much like last week, when Heilman broke Andrew’s 100 fly record in long course, the Cavalier Aquatics product showed improvement in both the front-end and the back-end of his race to get the new record. He took his swim out about as fast as Andrew did in 2014, but closed half-a-second faster to make the gap on the record. Interestingly, Andrew’s long course record was a way different pacing pattern, showing a lot more back-half ‘patience’ in the race than his short course swim did.
At the time, Andrew’s swim was also faster than the 15-16 record. The swim was done on his 15th birthday, but because swimmers’ ages are recorded on the first day of the meet, he was still chasing 13-14 records at the time.
On Thursday evening, Heilman swam 19.83 to win the 50 yard free, which improves his personal best and ranks him #2 all-time in the 13-14 age group. He still has the 200 free left to swim on Friday morning – an event where he crushed the National Age Group Record in long course last weekend.
Buh bye race pace “science” that doesn’t believe peer reviewed science.
Question: Why do you individuals that are locked in on MA hate make every article even tangentially related to him a debate about him?
Andrew is a successful open swimmer at a world class level, a quick search will show he is #3 all time 100 Brst, #6 all time 200 IM, #16 all time 100 FL, #23 all time 50 FS. Any swimmer (including ones setting insane NAG records at 14) would be doing very well to have a career as good as Michael Andrew has had to this point.
What was even crazier was that MA’s og record was faster than the 15-16 NAG record at the time!! 🤯🤯🤯 Remember the name, we could see an Olympian by 2028.
By 2028? He will be 17 in 2024, would you really be that surprised if we saw him on a relay or something at 2024?
Obviously that’s a tough progression and would be a massive accomplishment, but so is swimming that fast at any point.
The Andrew record was essentially noteworthy since it was a 13-14 NAG that was faster than the 15-16 NAG at that time. Crazy how much it was crushed today
This dude can almost qualify for ncaas 🤯
Andrew records were a fluke
I mean, c’mon, the guy broke the records. Clock doesn’t lie
Yeah he hasn’t done anything since he was 14
TIL the olympics are nothing
That’s a lot of flukes…
Michael Andrew is top 3 all time in an individual event. He is a successful, world class open swimmer whether you like it or not. His status as that is undeniable at this point.