Disclaimer: Blueseventy 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 blueSeventy Swim 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.
In 2017, if I had said Andrew Seliskar would be pushing for a U.S. World Championships roster spot in any event, you probably would have guessed 200 fly. After all, that’s where Seliskar won his first international medal – gold at 2013 World Juniors. If I said ‘guess again’, you’d probably wager the 200 or 400 IM – events Seliskar won at the 2014 Junior Pan Pacific Championships. If those, too, were wrong, you might guess breaststroke, where Seliskar has always been sneaky-good.
It might take ten guesses to get to the event that has been most steadily rising for Seliskar on the national level: 200 freestyle.
Seliskar, once one of the most exciting young swimmers in the nation, has only bettered lifetime-bests in two long course events since the spring of 2015. (His short course swimming was in a similar funk, until he hit lifetime-bests in four races this season). But over the last three weeks, Seliskar has knocked down his own personal best in the 200 free three times, going from 1:50.22 (done as a 17-year-old in 2014) to 1:48.35, without a major rest-and-focus meet yet this summer.
Last week, Seliskar went 1:49.23 in prelims and 1:48.35 in finals of the 200 free at the Santa Clara Pro Swim Series, beating a field that included three-fourths of Team USA’s bronze-medal 4×200 free relay from the 2017 World Championships (Townley Haas was third in 1:49.55, Zane Grothe seventh in 1:51.58 and Jack Conger eighth in 1:51.60, plus Worlds prelims swimmers Jay Litherland sixth in 1:51.23 and Clark Smith 13th in 1:52.37).
With that swim, Seliskar beat 8 of the 14 legs of the American 4×200 free relay at the 2016 Olympics and 2017 Worlds. The only members of those relays he didn’t beat head-to-head were 2017 leadoff man Blake Pieroni (absent in Santa Clara), 2017 prelims swimmer Caeleb Dressel (scratched in Santa Clara), 2016 leadoff man Conor Dwyer (absent in Santa Clara) and 2016 relay members Ryan Lochte (didn’t enter this event in Santa Clara) and Michael Phelps (retired).
Seliskar currently ranks 4th among Americans this season, behind only Conger, Pieroni and Grothe.
We saw a hint of this explosion coming when Seliskar cut two full seconds off his short course 200 free time during college season, going a blistering 1:31.28 at NCAAs. Now, we could see Seliskar looking to follow in the footsteps of Conger or Gunnar Bentz – versatile strokers who found their best Olympic opening as 200 freestylers.
WE MAKE SWIMMERS.
There isn’t a second that goes by when the team at blueseventy aren’t thinking about you. How you eat, breathe, train, play, win, lose, suffer and celebrate. How swimming is every part of what makes you tick. Aptly named because 70% of the earth is covered in water, blueseventy is a world leader in the pool and open water. Since 1993, we design, test, refine and craft products using superior materials and revolutionary details that equate to comfort, freedom from restriction and ultimately a competitive advantage in the water. This is where we thrive. There is no substitute and no way around it. We’re all for the swim.
Visit blueseventy.com/pages/swim to learn more.
Instagram: @blueseventy
Twitter: @blueseventy
Facebook: facebook.com/blueseventy
blueseventy is a SwimSwam partner.
@Jared I went 1:48.1 in Austin in January so he ranks 4th this season
For some reason, that time isn’t reflected in USA Swimming’s event ranks. I’ll update.
That’s awesome.
For Dwyer you could have just put ‘absent in general’
yet somehow will show up and still make the US International team when it counts…
His 100 fly was pretty impressive too
Wonder what got him off the plateau he was on? We need more all around swimmers with Phelps gone and Lochte aging. If he tapers well this summer, would like to see a SwimSwam interview.
Ok. Good for him. I think it’s great he’s found a stroke to improve on. But to say he beat these other more accomplished swimmers… insinuating they are in the same league really annoys me. Anyone who thinks Townley Haas’ 200 time at Santa Clara is ANY indication of his ability in that event probably missed this tear’s NCAA!s. You know… where he shut up the critics and broke the NCAA record. The seasoned veterans will be fast when it counts. In Irvine.
Townley wasn’t the first person under 130 though….just saying….pieroni got that honor and then Townley followed the next night.
Ha! Um. I know. I watched it. He may not have been the first under 1:30 but quite honestly it made his individual title AND the current NCAA record all the more amazing. This is swimming… we don’t get moments like that very often and it was epic. And you know everyone was doubting him just like they are now.
If you can look past school loyalty, this article never does that. He did beat them at the meet, which is an objective fact. But I think the point of the article isn’t to say that Seliskar is the new star of the 200 free. It’s that 1. even swimmers as good and developed as him can discover new parts of their abilities, and 2. the US could have a boon to what was its weakest relay.
You’re right and I do understand that. I really do think it’s fantastic that Seliskar is on the rise again. It’s just a little weird to me to talk about anyone “beating” an Olympian at a non tapered meet and treating it as significant. It’s not. Seliskar’s TIME is significant, not who he swam faster than. Because if it was important for Conger or Haas to beat him. They would have. Plain and simple.
If you’re gonna get bent out of shape everytime someone compliments a swim not done by a Texas swimmer, then you’re gonna be unhappy a lot.
Head to head with the best, Seliskar touched the wall first. No one is saying they should be handing him their gold medals. But it’s a nice accomplishment and says something about where they’re all at in mid-June. Certainly Swim of the Week -worthy. What, do you want swimswam to pick Haas getting 3rd as swim of the week because he was better 10 months ago?
Not bent out of shape at all. Seliskar DOES deserve the swim of the week. My point is I’m not taking away from Seliskar as much as I’m pointing out If you truly follow swimming you would know it doesn’t say a whole lot if anything in comparison to other swimmers. If one group is racing tired… as Texas often does than what does beating them really mean? It’s not just about texas,I would say the same about any other swimmer who trains that way. They are doing exactly what they need to be doing in mid June and their times are not going to compare with someone like Pieroni who races fast in season. It’s simply different training. So… Read more »
Nobody can go slow for the prelims of 200 free… it’s too stacked someone could easily miss out who could make the relay!
Didn’t even have fastest 200 Free at Santa Clara; Tae Hwan Park won B-Final with the fastest time of the Santa Clara weekend at 1:48.22.
Dean Farris did if you subtract out his stopping in the prelims.
Wishing him all the best to be on that summer 800 free relay squad .