Colorado Mesa’s Benjamin Sampson Crushes DII 400 IM Record; Indy’s Beussing .01 Behind

2024 NCAA Division II Swimming and Diving Championships

• Dates: March 12-16, 2024
• Times: Finals 10AM Eastern, Finals 5:30PM Eastern
• Location: SPIRE Institute Aquatics Center in Geneva, Ohio
• Defending Champions:
  • Nova S’eastern women (1x)
  • Indianapolis men (1x)
• Psych Sheets:
  • Women’s Psych Sheet
  • Men’s Psych Sheet
• Live Results
• Live Video (NCAA.com)

Men’s 400 Yard Individual Medley – Finals

• NCAA DII: 3:42.49 – Collyn Gagne, Simon Fraser (2022)
• Meet: 3:42.49 – Collyn Gagne, Simon Fraser (2022)

Podium:

1. Benjamin Sampson, Colorado Mesa – 3:40.22 *NCAA DIVISION II RECORD*
2. Cedric Buessing, Indy – 3:40.23
3. Santiago Corredor, Tampa – 3:46.26
4. Joao Nogueira, Drury – 3:47.95
5. Connor Bichsel, Missouri S&5 – 3:49.54
6. Daniel Aponte, NMU – 3:51.09
7. Kolos Nagy, WCU – 3:51.61
8. Kirill Sidorko, Lewis – 3:56.44

It was the fastest 400 IM race in NCAA Division II history.

Not one, but two swimmers absolutely destroyed the Division II and championship meet record of 3:42.49, set by Collyn Gagne of Simon Fraser in 2022. It was almost a tie, but Colorado Mesa’s Benjamin Sampson touched out Indy’s Cedric Buessing by .01 to get the win and etch his name in the record books.

Buessing led on the first 50 of butterfly but Sampson turned first at the fly-to-back wall with 50.65. Tampa’s Santiago Corredor was .20 back in second place, while Buessing had moved to third. It was Sampson-Buessing-Corredor on the two 50s of breaststroke, too, but Sampson increased his lead by half a body length.

Sampson held a 1-second advantage over Buessing as they began the freestyle. They both split 26.5s on the first 50, but Buessing began to cut into Sampson’s lead on the second 50. As they made their final turn, Sampson had nearly half a body length on Buessing, but the latter had the momentum.

With 5 yards to go, Sampson put his head down and just went for it with a no-breath flags-to-wall finish. Buessing took his last breath a stroke later and looked to have a bit more in the tank than Sampson. But just when seemed as if Sampson might run out of gas, he hit the touchpad and stopped the clock at 3:40.22. Buessing got to the wall at 3:40.23, also 2.6 seconds under the previous record, but .01 short of the title.

Sampson’s advantage was his leadoff butterfly, which set the pace for the rest of his race. He went 50.65 on the fly, 55.41 on the back, 1:02.24 on the breast, and 51.92 on the free. That put him 2.26 seconds under Gagne’s record at the halfway mark. His second half was nearly identical to that of Gagne, 1:54.16 versus 1:54.17. Buessing, on the contrary, was 1:53.47 on the back half.

Sampson won the 200 IM title on Wednesday night. He is seeded #1 in both the 100 back on Friday and the 200 back on Saturday.