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.
This week in history: future Cal teammates Abbey Weitzeil and Katie McLaughlin set 3 national high school records at the 2014 CIF-SS Division 1 Championships.
Both high school juniors shattered major marks. Swimming for Saugus High School, Weitzeil shattered 50 and 100 free national high school records. Weitzeil was 21.98 in the 50 free, shaving .01 off a record held by her future Olympic teammate Olivia Smoliga. Later in the meet, Weitzeil went 47.91 to break Dagny Knutson‘s five-year-old record in the 100 free. And Weitzeil would push the record even lower with a 47.82 leading off her team’s 400 free relay at the end of the session.
McLaughlin, meanwhile, went 51.78 in the 100 fly, breaking a national overall high school record previously set at 51.92 by Jasmine Tosky.
Both would lower their records in the future, and Weitzeil’s records would stand until 2020, when Gretchen Walsh finally surpassed them. (Here and here). McLaughlin’s overall national high school record would stand until February of 2019, when Torri Huske went 51.29. This year, Claire Curzan lowered the record further, to 50.35.
Weitzeil and McLaughlin would later go on to compete for California in the NCAA as part of the top-scoring recruiting class over four years. Both scored 100+ individual NCAA points over four seasons for McLaughlin and three for Weitzeil, who deferred her enrollment a year and had her senior season canceled in the coronavirus pandemic.
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Stirring the pot, how about ranking the greatest male and female individual races in Summer Olympics history starting with last nonboycotted Summer Olympics? A top ten list for each gender should suffice to pass the time away from the current inactivity.
And then the Walsh sisters came…..