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Disclaimer: Swim of the Week is not meant to be a conclusive selection of the best overall swim of the week, but rather one Featured Swim to be explored in deeper detail. The Swim of the Week is an opportunity to take a closer look at the context of one of the many fast swims this week, perhaps a swim that slipped through the cracks as others grabbed the headlines, or a race we didn’t get to examine as closely in the flood of weekly meets.
The tradition of Tunisia developing elite distance freestylers continues.
At the French Junior Championships last week in Rennes, 16-year-old Tunisian Rami Rahmouni earned a dominant sweep in the boys’ distance events, highlighted by his stunning effort in the 800 free.
Rahmouni blazed his way to a time of 7:52.80, winning the event by more than 15 seconds while knocking more than seven and a half seconds off his previous best time of 8:00.39, set just a few weeks earlier in late March.
Relative to that swim, Rahmouni was much more aggressive early, turning more than five seconds faster at the 200 (1:54.89) and nearly eight seconds under his previous PB pace at the halfway mark (3:53.94).
He negative-split his swim last month, out in 4:01.56 at the 400 and back in 3:58.83, while at the French Juniors, he closed nearly the exact same, 3:58.86, after opening in 3:53.94.
Split Comparison
| Rahmouni, March 2025 |
Rahmouni, April 2025
|
| 28.29 | 26.92 |
| 58.75 (30.46) | 56.01 (29.09) |
| 1:29.69 (30.94) | 1:25.28 (29.27) |
| 2:00.19 (30.50) | 1:54.89 (29.61) |
| 2:30.56 (30.37) | 2:24.55 (29.66) |
| 3:00.71 (30.15) | 2:54.22 (29.67) |
| 3:31.22 (30.51) | 3:24.05 (29.83) |
| 4:01.56 (30.34) | 3:53.94 (29.89) |
| 4:32.05 (30.49) | 4:23.99 (30.05) |
| 5:02.21 (30.16) | 4:53.92 (29.93) |
| 5:32.71 (30.50) | 5:23.77 (29.85) |
| 6:02.57 (29.86) | 5:53.82 (30.05) |
| 6:32.88 (30.31) | 6:23.90 (30.08) |
| 7:02.95 (30.07) | 6:54.13 (30.23) |
| 7:32.03 (29.08) | 7:24.08 (29.95) |
| 8:00.39 (28.36) | 7:52.80 (28.72) |
For context, Rahmouni’s swim would rank #2 all-time in the boys’ 15-16 age group in the United States, three-quarters of a second shy of Larsen Jensen‘s NAG Record of 7:52.05 set in 2002.
Among 18 & under junior swimmers all-time, Rahmouni ranks 25th, with a handful of other 16-year-olds having been faster, including Italian Lorenzo Galossi (7:43.37), Croatian Franko Grgic (7:45.92), China’s Zhang Zhanshuo (7:47.84) and fellow Tunisian Ahmed Hafnaoui (7:49.09).
Rahmouni also set new personal bests in the 400 free (3:49.45) and 1500 free (15:10.48) at the meet, knocking nearly two seconds off his previous best in the former (3:51.30) and slicing three one-hundredths off his old PB in the latter (15:10.51).
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A few months older than Mijatovic… interesting to watch their careers run in parallel. Luka’s 400 in Westmont was a little faster, while his longer races are a bit behind. Let’s see how it goes this summer!
uhm what ok
Oh, young Rami. Words cannot describe how much effort this young man has put in for our seven hours a day of training. Following our 6 months of excellence plan leads to wonders, even at young ages.
Philippe Lucas’ next prodigy!!