Six Storylines to Watch at the Pro Swim Series — Westmont

2025 TYR Pro Swim Series — Westmont

• Westmont, IL — FMC Natatorium
• March 5-8, 2025
• LCM (50 Meters)
• Meet Central
• Start Times: prelims –  9:00 am CT/ finals – 6:00 pm CT
  • Weds. Timed Finals: 5:00 pm CT
• Pre-Scratch Psych Sheet (updated 3/3)

We are entering a very fast month of racing in the world of swimming, and it all starts tomorrow with the TYR Pro Swim Series in Westmont.

The Pro Swim Series meets have acted as ‘tune-up’ meets for many of the world’s top swimmers, and this is the first one in 2025. This stop is particularly interesting because there is a significant contingent of Canadian, Australian, and Brazilian swimmers at the meet, but there will be very few high-level college athletes as they are preparing for the NCAA Championships later this month.

This week is one of the first major long course meets of the year, and will be our first primer for the World Championships in July. While this is not the end-all-be-all of the season, it will help set the tone by allowing everyone from Olympic Champions to High School hopefuls to see where they are at in their training and it will allow swim fans to get our first peek at the exciting season ahead.

Returns of the Elite

Many of the top swimmers in the World have not swam a long course meet since the Olympic Games in August, so this will be their first “big-pool” racing opportunity in more than six months. There are a number of these athletes who will be racing this weekend, though not all of them are swimming full line-ups. The list of Olympians/World Champs Qualifiers is incredibly long, so we will be highlighting a few of them here.

Summer McIntosh is one of, if not the, biggest name at the meet. We have gotten the opportunity to see her race long course already this season, but not in her primary events. While she has expressed interest in seeking a 5th World Championships event, she has stuck with three of her typical events for this meet, the 200 fly, 200 IM and 400 IM.

Australian World Champion Sam Short is making his first return to racing since a ‘disappointing’ Olympics, where he finished 4th in the 400 and failed to make the 1500 final. At the 2023 World Champs, Short won the 400 free, took silver in the 800 free, and earned the bronze in the 1500 free. He took a few months off after the Games to rehab his shoulder and deal with ongoing injuries, so this will be our first look, and his first look, at where he is at with four months to go until Worlds.

There are also a bevy of US Olympians who are racing this weekend. Hunter Armstrong will be swimming his first real meet since the Olympics (he swam the 100 free at at club meet in January). Simone Manuel will also be swimming for the first time post-Games, and she is entered in a full line-up of events including the 50 free, 100 free, 200 free, 50 fly, and 100 fly. Shaine Casas, Kate Douglass, Regan Smith, and Lilly King are all swimming their first meets since the World Championships where they all had strong performances. It is worth noting, however, that neither Douglass nor Casas are entered in the 200 IM, an incredibly strong event for both of them.

Sprinter Showdown

The women’s sprint freestyle events are incredibly stacked, even with huge names missing the meet for various reasons.

Australian sprinter, and reigning 50 free Olympic silver medalist, Meg Harris is in 50 free, 50 fly, and 100 freestyle. While the reigning 50 free gold medalist, Sarah Sjostrom is out for the season, Harris does not have a clear path to the top spot in the event this week.

She will be joined by Kate Douglass, who is actually seeded first in the event but did not swim it at the Games, and Kasia Wasick, who finished 6th but has a faster seed time. The top three swimmers are all separated by six-hundredths of a second. Simone Manuel, who competed in the event at the Olympics but did not make it past the prelims, is seeded fourth, less than two tenths behind.

The 100 freestyle is a similar story with many of the top athletes sitting very close to one another. Harris has the top seed in the event, with Manuel coming in about half a second back. Penny Oleksiak and Mary-Sophie Harvey are also entered in the event, less than a tenth away from each other and about half-a-second behind Manuel.

Back-to-Back Finishes

Both the men’s and women’s backstroke events feature some very close races that could be decided by a very small margin.

The women’s events are spotlighted by World Record holder Regan Smith, who is undoubtedly the favorite to win all three distances this week. It is shaping up to be a dog fight in the races after her, however. Katharine Berkoff has been at the top of women’s backstroke in the United States for a while, and she is entered in the 100 back as the 2nd seed in the 50 and 100 backstrokes. She is also entered in the 200, but with a SCY time, coming in at 22nd.

Other superstars on the women’s side include Canadian backstroker Kylie Masse who is coming off a bronze medal at the Olympics in the 200 and a 4th place finish in the 100. Fellow Canadian backstroker Ingrid Wilm, who focuses more on the 100, will also be in the events. Rhyan White, a 2021 backstroke Olympian, is another swimmer to watch.

On the men’s side, we have Olympian Hunter Armstrong making his return in the 50 and 100 backstroke events as the top seed. Shaine Casas is not far behind him, however, and Casas is coming off one of the best meets of his career at the 2024 SC World Championships in December.

Michael Andrew, who has historically been very strong at 50s and 100s of stroke distances, appears in the 50 back, and his personal best times always make him a threat, especially with his new training.

New Coach, Who Dis?

Speaking of Michael Andrew, this is one of the first meets we will see him race in since his shocking coaching change after last summer’s disappointment. After going pro at age 14, Andrew had spent his entire career training with his dad in a rather controversial environment that focused solely on sprinting. They were subject to a lot of criticism for their training methods, but they seemed to work for him, until the last few years when he has struggled to make World Championships and Olympic rosters.

In September, he announced he had been training by himself, and in October, he made the full-time move to Tempe to train with ASU coach Herbie Behm. Since then, he has swam a few meets, the SC World Champs less than two months later, and recently the Copa Internacional where he raced a few events, but appeared to be unrested. He now has four months under his belt of Behm’s training, so it will be interesting to see what he is capable of.

Andrew is entered in the 50 back, 50 breast, 50 fly, 100 breast, 200 IM, and 50 freestyle.

Hungarian teenager Vivien Jackl is another athlete who has recently made a significant coaching change and who will be swimming this week. Just recently, Jackl made the change to coach Shane Tusup and they signed with the Hungarian multi-sport club Honved.

While two weeks likely isn’t enough time to see significant changes in her coaching, she has never competed in a TYR pro stop before, so we are already seeing the impact of a new coach on her meet schedule.

Jackl is entered in a full lineup of seven events including the 200 free, 200 fly, 200 IM, 400 free, 400 IM, 800 free, and 1500 free.

Club Comfort

Two high profile swimmers made a different kind of coaching change, leaving their college teams at semester to return to their club teams to train for Worlds.

Aaron Shackell was the first to announce his training change, when he left Texas after the Texas Hall of Fame Invite to return home to Carmel and train with his club team and club coach there. This was the 2nd year in a row that Shackell made the decision to leave at semester and return home.

Shackell is entered in the 200 free, 400 free, and 100 fly for his first real meet since leaving Texas.

Luke Whitlock is the other athlete to move home. He swam one semester at Florida, and after the UGA Fall Invitational, he announced his decision to return to the Fishers Area Swim Team so he could put all his focus into a Worlds qualification.

Whitlock is entered in five events, the 200 free, 400 free, 800 free, 1500 free, and the 400 IM.

Changing of the Guard

While we have spent the whole time discussing the swimmers who are already Olympians or World Champions, we have not looked at all the young talent at the meet.

Many of the teenage swimmers have had huge years breaking NAG records and finding themselves in World Rankings and as legitimate threats in their events this weekend.

15-year-old Rylee Erisman from Laker Swim recently broke the NAG record in the 100 free and a National Public High School record in the 50 free. She is still young and only getting faster, but she is absolutely a swimmer to watch in the coming years, and maybe this year.

Luka Mijatovic is another 15-year-old phenom who is racing this weekend, after missing Winter Juniors. Mijatovic is entered in the 200 free, 400 free, 800 free, 1500 free. He currently holds the NAG record in the 400 freestyle, but we could be seeing more records go down this week.

Other young swimmers we are watching this week include Teagan O’Dell, Madi Mintenko, and Andy Kravchenko. Many of these younger athletes will be making their first World Championships bid at this summer’s trials.