Swim of the Week is brought to you by arena, a SwimSwam partner.
Disclaimer: Swim of the Week is not meant to be a conclusive selection of the best overall swim of the week, but rather one Featured Swim to be explored in deeper detail. The Swim of the Week is an opportunity to take a closer look at the context of one of the many fast swims this week, perhaps a swim that slipped through the cracks as others grabbed the headlines, or a race we didn’t get to examine as closely in the flood of weekly meets.
Despite falling to the powerhouse Longhorns, LSU showed up in a big way last week in their dual against new SEC rival Texas. The Tigers set three new school records, two of which came at the hands of freshman Nicole Santuliana.
Santuliana, an Italian native who was racing an official dual meet in short course yards for the first time (having debuted at the LSU intrasquad), took down LSU records in the women’s distance freestyle events, one of which had been on the books since 2002.
In the 1000 free, Santuliana clocked a time of 9:39.52, knocking 11 seconds off the previous LSU Record of 9:50.51 set by Stephanie Smith at the 2002 Nike Cup Invitational—three years before Santuliana was born.
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Santuliana, who will turn 19 in November, placed 3rd in the event behind the Texas duo of Jillian Cox (9:25.88) and Kate Hurst (9:35.77). So far this season, Santuliana ranks 5th in the nation, trailing only Cox, Hurst and the Georgia duo of Abby McCulloh and Rachel Stege.
Santuliana added a second school record in the 500 free, clocking 4:40.85 to finish as the runner-up to Cox and lower the previous mark of 4:41.01 established by Megan Barnes seven months ago at the NCAA Championships.
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