Rex Maurer had an incredible performance at the Texas Hall of Fame Invitational, setting the American record in the 500 freestyle and finishing the meet with three nation-leading times in the 500 free, 400 IM, and 1650 free.
On the last day of the meet, Maurer won the 1650, dropping 24 seconds and setting a new best time of 14:30.47. Not only is this time faster than anyone else this year, it is also faster than the time that won the 2024 NCAA Championships (Zalan Sarknay’s 14:30.57).
When it comes to race strategy, Maurer had a different approach than others, negative-splitting his 1600, and coming home faster in his last 250 than one of the best closers ever, Bobby Finke, in his NCAA record swim.
Split Comparison
| Rex Maurer (2024 Texas HOF Invite) | Bobby Finke (2020 SEC Championships) | |
| 100 | 50.84 | 49.17 |
| 200 | 53.72 | 51.27 |
| 300 | 53.97 | 51.60 |
| 400 | 54.05 | 51.64 |
| 500 | 53.79 | 51.60 |
| 600 | 53.59 | 51.91 |
| 700 | 54.08 | 51.72 |
| 800 | 53.64 | 51.94 |
| 900 | 53.40 | 52.03 |
| 1000 | 53.28 | 51.75 |
| 1100 | 53.00 | 52.24 |
| 1200 | 52.59 | 51.93 |
| 1300 | 52.45 | 52.08 |
| 1400 | 52.19 | 52.12 |
| 1500 | 51.33 | 52.07 |
| 1600 | 50.63 | 51.92 |
| 1650 | 23.92 | 25.09 |
| Final Time | 14:30.47 | 14:12.08 |
Maurer’s first 800 was 7:07.68, and consisted of mostly 53 and 54-second 100s. His second 800 dropped to 6:58.87, where he went only two 53s, and the rest of the race was 52s, 51s and one 50. His 16th 100 was faster than his first 100 at 50.63 to 50.84, and his last 50 of 23.92 was over a second faster than anyone else in the field.
Finke took on a completely different strategy, opening the first 800 in 6:50.85, then splitting 6:56.14 on the next 800. Unlike Maurer, his first 100 was his fastest—he split the race consistently throughout and ended up with a time 18 seconds faster than Maurer.
When Maurer swam these splits on Friday evening, he took it out relatively easy and he was behind second place swimmer David Johnston for most of the race. It wasn’t until the 1550 mark that Maurer overtook him, and 100 later he won the race by 5 seconds. Compared to Maurer, Johnston split a very consistent race, but lost to the incredible back end speed Maurer put up.
Last 250 Split Comparison
| Rex Maurer | Bobby Finke | David Johnston | |
| 1450 | 25.65 | 26.03 | 26.69 |
| 1500 | 25.68 | 26.04 | 26.89 |
| 1550 | 25.60 | 25.87 | 26.91 |
| 1600 | 25.03 | 26.05 | 27.15 |
| 1650 | 23.92 | 25.09 | 26.11 |
| Total 250 time | 2:05.88 | 2:09.08 | 2:13.75 |
Last 300 (Finke) 350 (Maurer and Johnston) Visual
Finke would have almost lapped Johnston and Maurer had they been in the same heat, but Maurer was faster on the back end than even Finke’s NCAA record breaking swim. If he finds a way to keep hold of his blistering back end speed while being faster in the front, like Finke’s 1500m world record swim, we could see Maurer challenge Finke’s NCAA record in the coming years. After all, Finke was only 14:47 in November of 2019, and he set the record in February of 2020.
He has given away his race strategy for March. If someone wants to beat him they will need to take it out fast and build a lead
Is he going to Budapest?
No
And to think Rex did not want to swim this Friday …
25.09 on the last 50 from Finke isn’t very fast. In his 1500 in Tokyo he finished in 25.78, that’s probably a 22 high in SCY, so Finke didn’t have his typical insane last 50 in this 1650. So 23.9 from Rex is very good but not that impressive i think
It is still impressive, regardless of how it compares to Finke. Finishing any SCY distance race with a 23 is really fast.
I think dropping your best time by 24 seconds as a college Sophomore is most impressive.
“Chris Paul hits a huge 3 to cut the lead down to 42” vibes of this post.
Going faster the back half when your front half is 20sec slower isn’t really an important data point
This ^^
If swimswam did that Atari-style race animation, Finke would’ve been about 5 yards from lapping Rex at the 1400
Okay give us a few minutes!