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Pippin Kantakom has announced his commitment to the University of Pennsylvania. Kantakom will arrive at Penn in the fall of 2025 after finishing up his high school career at Phillips Academy Andover, where he competes in addition to racing for Phoenix.
Kantakom is an international student at Andover; he’s from Bangkok and represents Thailand internationally.
The Andover boys are a consistent force in New England prep school swimming. Kantakom has helped the team sweep the Eastern Interscholastic Championships and the NEPSAC Division I Championships for the past two seasons. In the 2023-24 season, Kantakom finished second in the 500 freestyle at Easterns and fourth in the 200 IM, swimming lifetime bests of 4:31.90 and 1:48.80.
Two weeks later, Kantakom finished second in the 200 IM (1:48.97) and third in the 500 freestyle (4:35.50). He also split 45.51 on Andover’s title-winning 400 freestyle relay, which capped the championship effort for the team.
Most recently, Kantakom raced for Phoenix Swimming at New England Seniors. There, he was a three-time championship finalist, highlighted by a second-place finish in the 100 breaststroke in his second registered time swimming the event. He clocked a lifetime best 54.94 in the final, dropping from the 56.07 he swam in prelims.
Kantakom also took fourth in the 200 breaststroke with a lifetime best of 2:01.38. Like the 100 breaststroke, this meet was the first time he’d registered an official yards swim in the event. Finally, he added a fourth-place finish in the 200 IM (1:50.17) and a 13th-place finish in the 400 IM (4:07.07).
Best Times (SCY):
- 500 freestyle: 4:31.80
- 100 breaststroke: 54.94
- 200 breaststroke: 2:01.38
- 200 IM: 1:48.08
Kantakom arrives on campus with a 200 IM lifetime best that would’ve made the ‘C’ final at the 2024 Men’s Ivy League Championships and eventually earned five points. That would’ve made him the fifth Penn swimmer in the event’s ‘C’ final; the Quakers had one ‘B’ finalist but no swimmers in the championship final.
In 2024, only 25 swimmers entered the men’s 200 breaststroke at the Ivy League Championships, meaning all but one scored. Kantakom’s 2:01.38 lifetime best would’ve placed him in the ‘C’ final, where he would’ve earned another three points.
Kantakom’s shown plenty of speed already, but given how few official races he has on his resume in events like the 100/200 breaststroke, it seems that he’s got even more to give in those races.
Penn is home to U.S. Olympian and 200 breaststroke American record holder Matt Fallon and, perhaps unsurprisingly, has begun to build a strong breaststroke group behind him. Kantakom’s 100 breaststroke time would’ve been fourth on the team’s 2023-24 depth chart, but the Quakers’ last recruiting class featured “Best of the Rest” recruits, Jeffrey Hou and Watson Nguyen, both of whom arrived on campus with 53-point 100 breaststroke lifetime bests. Last season, Fallon was the only Penn swimmer to break 54-seconds in the event; they already have two this season, effectively doubling their total from last year with the postseason still to come.
Penn finished fourth at the 2024 Ivy League Championships, up from sixth the year before. The school’s pool is closed for the entire 2024-25 season for major renovations. Kantakom’s recruiting class will be the first to train solely at the improved facilities.
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