Regan Smith Doubles, Marchand Hits 200 Breast Qualifying Time to Conclude Longhorn Elite Meet

2025 Longhorn Aquatics Elite Invite

• May 14-16, 2025
• Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swim Center, Austin, Texas
• Long Course Meters (50 meters)
• Live Results
• Recaps
  • Prelims: Day 2 | Day 3
  • Finals: Day 2 | Day 3

Olympian Regan Smith picked up a pair of wins on the final day of the 2025 Longhorn Aquatics Elite Invite just 35 minutes apart.

That included a 58.34 in the 100 meter backstroke, which is about a second slower than the 57.46 she swam in finals in Fort Lauderdale, but still faster than anyone besides her primary rival Kaylee McKeown has been globally this season.

Maggie Wanezek (1:00.47) and National teamer Phoebe Bacon (1:00.59), both from Wisconsin, finished 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

About half-an-hour later, Smith swam 2:11.36 in the 200 IM. That again was about a second slower than the 2:10.25 that she swam in Ft. Lauderdale.

Smith, who is training under the archetypal IM coach Bob Bowman, has always been a very good IM’er, but she has never swum it at a major selection meet and in fact has never before raced the event in long course in back-to-back meets like this at any point in her career.

Smith continues to be arguably the best three-stroke IMer in the world, though her breaststroke lags behind (40.74 split). That was about three seconds slower than University of Texas undergrad Campbell Chase was on the breaststroke leg.

Chase’s runner-up time on Saturday of 2:12.53 undercut her lifetime best from last summer’s Olympic Trials by about half-a-second. Incidentally, her drop included a huge improvement on the breaststroke leg from her previous best time.

Campbell’s Split Comparison:

Erin Gemmell was 3rd in 2:14.08, just .08 seconds short of her best time.

On the men’s side, another Texas Longhorn Rex Maurer won the 800 free in 7:51.19, which cuts almost 19 seconds off his lifetime best from December 2023. Maurer’s career has turned a corner since joining Bob Bowman‘s training squad, including winning NCAA titles in the 500 free and 400 IM in March, his last meet.

His 7:51.19 would have placed him 5th at last summer’s Olympic Trials. With one of the two swimmers who made the team in this event (Luke Whitlock) announcing on Saturday that he won’t be racing at US Nationals, this swim two weeks out will significantly boost Maurer’s chances. Daniel Matheson is the #2 returner from Trials, where he swam 7:49.34.

Maurer also swam 3:46.52 in the 400 free and 4:16.61 in the 400 IM.

The other highlight race of the final day of racing in Austin was the 200 breaststroke, where Frenchman Leon Marchand swam 2:08.25, which puts him under the requisite French qualifying standard for the World Championships. The French Federation is choosing most of its team from the French National Championships in Montpellier next month, but made an exception for the four-time Olympic gold medalist Marchand to qualify at meets in the U.S.

This was one of Marchand’s four wins at last summer’s Olympic Games.

Carson Foster was 2nd in that race in 2:14.31.

Other Day 4 Winners and Highlights:

• Hubert Kos, the Hungarian Olympic Champion in the 200 back last summer, won the 100 on Saturday in 53.51. He out-raced Will Modglin (54.18). That’s about a six-tenths improvement for Modglin versus this meet last year, though it’s about two weeks closer to the big taper meet.
• Wisconsin’s Michael Long was 3rd in the 100 back in 54.98, which was a big drop from his previous best of 55.82 (done on the same weekend last year at a meet in Wisconsin). Earlier in the week, he dropped over a second in the 200 back to finish 2nd in 2:00.46.
• Texas rising sophomore Piper Enge won the 200 breast in 2:31.89.
• Simone Manuel, who earlier in the week put up a headlining win in the 100 free, won the 50 free on Saturday in 24.54. That’s .45 seconds better than she was at the Pro Swim Series in Ft. Lauderdale earlier this month and almost as fast as the 24.51 she swam in the final at last year’s Olympic Trials. In Ft. Lauderdale, Manuel said that her current training is the hardest she’s ever done in her career.
• Texas A&M’s Ben Scholl won the 50 free in 22.56, which is faster than he was at last summer’s Olympic Trials and only .17 seconds off his lifetime best. That time is also his best of the season so far.