Audrey Deriveaux and Ryan Erisman smash best times, both now top-10 in Respective Age Groups

2025 Pro Swim Series – Fort Lauderdale

• Wednesday, April 30 – Saturday, May 3, 2025
• Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center
• LCM (50 meters)
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results
• Live Recaps
  • Prelims: Day 2
  • Finals: Day 1 | Day 2

In a thrilling 200 fly ‘A’ final where the front three of Alex Shackell, Regan Smith and Audrey Deriveaux touched just nine-hundredths apart with 50 to go, the youngest of the trio ended up finishing just half a second off a hallowed age-group record. That is of course Mary T Meagher’s 2:05.96 from 1981, a World Record at the time, that for the first time in it’s near-44 year lifetime looks under threat.

Deriveaux came in with a lifetime best of 2:07.70, set last year at the 2024 Futures Championships when she was still in the 13-14 age group. She demolished that time by over a second tonight, nearly breaking 1:00 on the first 100 as she touched in 1:00.17 at the halfway mark. She outsplit the two women ahead of her on the third 50 to set up a final 50 showdown, but was not quite able to hang with the two Olympians down the stretch with a 33.98 final 50.

She slots in as the #2 swimmer in the 15-16 age group and as the #4 18-and-under swimmer in US history behind Meager, Alex Shackell and Regan Smith – two of whom she had swum against tonight. With over a year left in the 15-16 age group and a history of dropping fast times in the summer, the record could be seriously under threat as soon as US World Trials.

Splits tonight

Ryan Erisman was the second junior swimmer tonight to vault into an age group top-10 berth, doing so in the 400 freestyle. Entered with his previous best of 3:52.20 from the Westmont Pro Swim Series in March, he sliced 1.46 seconds off this morning to claim lane 5 for the final in 3:50.74 before hacking another two seconds off to go 3:48.57 and maintain his position in the final.

He took sixth in the final at that Westmont stop, so is showing that he can compete at the sharp end with the very best here in Florida.

He split the race tonight 1:53.17-1:55.40, around a second faster on both 200s than this morning. He showed some rapid closing speed on the final 50 here, as he overhauled none other than Olympic quadruple gold-medallist Leon Marchand with a split of 28.24. The two had been within two-tenths of one another from the 200m mark onwards, but Erisman had the final say as they both just stayed ahead of a charging Bobby Finke.

Erisman had jumped up into the top 100 in the 17-18 age group to #51 in the 1500 freestyle yesterday, where he dropped 19 seconds off his best time, and goes from #46 to #8 in the 400 today. He will swim the 200 tomorrow, where he currently sits at #22 and is only a second off the top-10.

Splits Tonight