With seven individual swims ranked in the top 15 nationally for his age group, Will Barao of the South Shore YMCA Strypers gets the nod for the HardCoreSwim of the Week.
Coming off a great end of 2013 where he recorded lifetime bests in the 1000 free, 1650 free, and 400 IM (all three good for top 50 all-time in the 11-12 boys age group), Barao continued his great season with arguably the best meet of his young career. At the 2014 SPY Winterfest Invitational at the Eppley Recreation Center on the University of Maryland campus last weekend, Barao, a 12-year-old Massachusetts native, put together a very impressive meet program, winning six of the seven individual events he entered, and setting team records in all seven (100 free, 200 free, 500 free, 100 back, 100 fly, 200 IM, 400 IM). The only event he didn’t finish first in overall was the open 400 IM, where he had the fastest time of anybody under the age of 14.
The two swims that were particularly worthy of a HardCoreSwim nomination, though, were his 500 and 200 freestyles. Barao opened the meet with a 4:49.93 in the 500, the second fastest time in the country this year for 12 & under boys, and more than 32 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor. The next day, Barao won the 200 freestyle by nearly ten seconds, touching in 1:47.69, which was also good for second in the country this season. Overall, Barao sits tenth all time in the 200 freestyle, and is just the sixteenth 11-12 boy in history to crack the 4:50 barrier in the 500 freestyle.
Here is a table summary of Barao’s national rankings following his results from last weekend:
|
Time |
11-12 USA Rank, 2013-14 |
11-12 USA Rank, All Time |
|
|
200 free |
1:47.69 |
2nd |
10th |
|
500 free |
4:49.93 |
2nd |
16th |
|
100 free |
50.22 |
4th |
Top 50 |
|
200 IM |
2:03.91 |
5th |
Top 60 |
|
400 IM |
4:23.37 |
6th |
Top 30 |
|
100 back |
57.71 |
12th |
N/A |
|
100 fly |
57.03 |
15th |
N/A |
Winning six individual events in a weekend and recording the top under-14 time in another, while breaking team records in all of them is HardCore, and for that Barao gets the HardCore Swim of the Week.
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