CAL vs USC (COMBINED DUAL)
- Friday, January 17, 2025
- Spieker Aquatics Complex, Berkeley, CA
- SCY (25 Yards)
- Live results available on Meet Mobile
- following the conclusion of the meet, the PDF results file will be included in our meet recap
Cal is taking on former Pac-12 opponent USC at the Spieker Aquatics Complex this afternoon. In true Cal fashion, it’s been an eventful week for the Golden Bears, as we’ve already reported on a pair of midseason additions to their roster in Lars Antoniak and Camille Henveaux. The kick off this meet revealed another pair of midseason additions for Cal, both on the men’s side and both Olympians.
Just 2 days after Cal announced they had signed Camille Henveaux, her older brother, Lucas Henveaux, is now back on Cal’s roster after having competed for the Golden Bears during the 2022-2023 season. Henveaux, who is a Belgian Olympian, was a big contributor to Cal’s 2023 NCAA Championship title, finishing 9th in the 500 free (4:10.50) and 1650 free (14:44.14), also helping Cal to a 3rd place finish in the 800 free relay with a 1:31.90 split. The 2022-2023 season was the only season he competed for Cal, and he was listed as a Graduate Student on their roster for that season.
Henveaux is 24.
After his year competing with Cal, Henveaux has been highly successful on the world stage. He notched a 4th-place finish in the 400 free at the 2024 LC World Championships in Doha last February. Henveaux then competed for Belgium at the Paris Olympics this past summer, where he finished 3rd in prelims of the 200 free (1:46.04), but then missed out on qualifying for finals. He was also 12th in prelims of the 400 free, and 19th in the 800 free. More recently, Henveaux earned the bronze medal in the 200 free and 400 free at the SC World Championships in Budapest last month.
The other addition is France’s Mewen Tomac, who is 23 and turns 24 in September. This is an interesting addition because Tomac had announced his commitment to Cal last January, saying then he would be beginning with Cal in the fall. However, he didn’t end up competing for Cal, or on their roster this fall, but he’s now racing for them today. Like Henveaux, Tomac is an Olympian.
Tomac is primarily a backstroker, who competed for France at the Paris Olympics this past summer. He had a great performance there, finishing 4th in the 200 back with his career best of 1:55.38. He also made semifinals in the 100 back. At the 2024 SC World Championships last month, Tomac earned the bronze medal in the 200 back, swimming a 1:49.93.
Tomac is already making a splash, having just led off Cal’s ‘B’ 200 medley relay in 21.40 in his first yards race of his career. The addition of a backstroker Tomac’s caliber introduces some interesting options for Cal on their medley relays. If Tomac can get up to speed quick enough, he may be able to take the backstroke duty from Bjorn Seeliger on the 200 medley relay, which would allow Seeliger, Cal’s fastest 50 freestyler (18.27 career best), to move to the anchor. Alternatively, Seeliger is such a pure sprinter, he may be able to move to fly on that relay, if Tomac can get his 50 back down close to Seeliger’s.
All of that is speculation, however, what isn’t speculation is that Cal just added 2 huge impact swimmers to their roster as the ACC Championships sit just over a month away. Henveaux is set to race the 200 free and 500 free today, while Tomac will be in the 100 back, 200 back, and 200 IM.
Can we put our feelings about these moves aside for a minute and talk about how electric NCAAs are going to be this year?! This is going to be a 3-team race for the ages.
Durden and Marsh are just committed to trolling Andrew at this point
Have they contacted Kyle chalmers? He hasn’t raced for Cal yet
This just feels slimy. Everything Marsh touches and now Durden too, feels slimy.
Andrew may overreact to everything Cal does, but it’s just a joke at this point
What would we do without Andrew? He makes the SwimSwam comment section so fun.
A huge percentage of swimswam commenters seem to agree with the idea that college athletes should be paid as far as I perceive. The other side of that coin is this. Look at football, some are turning down opportunities at pro rookie contracts because they can make more in college. Coaches WILL find the best available athletes if the rules allow. You can find the ranks of unsuccessful retired coaches full of noble ideals.
Could Brooks Curry join the cal ncaa roster?
NCAA swimming is broken. Winning used to take getting several good recruiting classes, developing swimmers and hitting tapers. Coaching and team culture mattered. But it’s just becoming an arms race of accumulating already fast transfers and 24 year old Europeans.
It’s obviously not just Cal, but they do it the most and Marsh has been doing this for years. NIL is just compounding the problem.
Not just NCAA swimming but all NCAA sports.
Someone with Meet Mobile want to let me know how Henveaux and Tomac did in the 200 Fr and 100 BK respectively in the first session? I didn’t get the stream on fast enough to watch the before the diving break.
1:32.14 in the 200 free (1st), 46.26 in the 100 back (2nd after Lasco @ 46.06)
Thanks jeff!
Meet mobile is $6.99 per year on the App Store fyi
I know. I buy it every year around this time, look at it twice then forget about it the rest of the year, so this year I’m trying to ride it out; however, I did want to know how their first swims went today.