MEN’S 400 IM Final – 2014 Austin Grand Prix – reported by Jared Anderson / SwimSwam
Forgoing his trademark 200 free at this meet, Conor Dwyer has spent the weekend showing his versatility in other races. So it’s fitting that Dwyer emerged the winner of the 400 IM, as there’s really no other race that requires as much versatility and endurance.
Dwyer used a strong backstroke leg to build a lead on Tunisian Olympian and long-distance specialist Ous Mellouli. The two were almost identical split-wise apart from that backstroke, where Dwyer went 1:06.4 to Mellouli’s 1:07.5. That one second proved to be the difference as Dwyer went 4:16.58 to Mellouli’s 4:17.69.
Top seed Josh Prenot was in the hunt for the first 300 meters as well – he actually put up the fastest backstroke and breaststroke splits of the field, but wasn’t able to match the incredible closing speed of Dwyer and Mellouli. Prenot, who swims for the Golden Bears of the University of California, still wound up third with a 4:19.13.
NCAP 17-year-old Andrew Seliskar rose to the occasion at finals, dropping 7 seconds off his prelims swim to improve from the 7th seed to 4th place. He was helped with one spot by the scratch of Tyler Clary, who announced just before finals that he was done for the weekend with a flare-up of an existing back injury this morning.
Palo Alto’s Curtis Ogren took fifth, three tenths up on Olympian Scott Weltz. 15-year-old Sean Grieshop of Nitro took seventh, and Michael Weiss, who snuck into the A final on Clary’s scratch, went a few seconds slower to take 8th place.
Alec Page had a great swim to charge to a win in the B final – he went 4:26.34, almost 6 seconds better than he was this morning.
