Dolfin Swim of the Week: Katie Grimes’ 4:09.2 in 400y IM

Disclaimer: Dolfin 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  Dolfin 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.

14-year-old Sandpiper of Nevada Katie Grimes had an incredible 400 IM last week, moving to #3 all-time in the 13-14 age group.

Grimes went 4:09.27, moving to within a second of a 16-year-old National Age Group record. That record is held by an age group legend: Katie Hoffwho made the U.S. Olympic team at age 15 and ultimately won three Olympic medals and seven World Championships golds in her career.

The swim for Grimes was a massive time drop. Her previous best time had been a 4:14.67, set as a 13-year-old in December of 2019. Coming out of a pandemic-restricted summer, Grimes crushed more than five seconds off her best time. She leapfrogged a number of really notable names in the all-time 13-14 ranks with that swim:

Top 400y IMers all-time, USA Swimming 13-14 ranks

  1. Katie Hoff (2004) – 4:08.44
  2. Grace Sheble (2017) – 4:09.00
  3. Katie Grimes (2020) – 4:09.27
  4. Becca Mann (2012) – 4:10.29
  5. Charlotte Hook (2018) – 4:11.00
  6. Ella Eastin (2011) – 4:11.61
  7. Courtney Harnish (2014) – 4:11.93
  8. Jessica Kennedy [Schmitt] (2006) – 4:12.31
  9. Brooke Zettel (2018) – 4:12.39
  10. Lucy Bell (2019) – 4:12.42

A few other names further back on that list: Missy Franklin (12th – 4:12.83), Mariah Denigan (17th – 4:13.72), Taylor Ruck (19th – 4:13.96), Natalie Coughlin (21st – 4:14.08), Ella Nelson (22nd – 4:14.28), Maya DiRado (23rd – 4:14.47), Ariana Kukors (26th – 4:14.94), and Regan Smith (34th – 4:15.80).

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About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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