Justin Wright, one of the few remaining elite recruits from the class of 2014, has verbally committed to swim for the University of Arizona.
Wright swims for Clovis West High School and the Fresno Dolphin Swim Team under coach Rick Klatt in Fresno, California. He has built up a very impressive resume over the last few years, including being a three-time USA Swimming National Junior Team member, a 2012 Junior Pan Pacs participant, and a member of the 2013 USA Swimming 18&U World Cup Team. In the high school realm, he is a 4 time High School All-American, and was the 2013 Central California CIF Champion in the 200 free and 100 butterfly.
Overall, his 200m butterfly time (1:57.90) is currently the fourth fastest time ever swum by a 15-16 year old in the United States. His best yards times don’t quite match his long course ability, but his 48.83 and 1:46.31 in the butterfly races are still respectable coming out of his junior year of high school. While he is best known for his talent as a butterflier, he does have several other races in his pocket. In the freestyle events, he has been 21.68 / 46.48 / 1:38.95 / 4:33.76 in the 50 through 500 distances. Although the times are unofficial, he has also been 45.3 and 20.8 from relay take-offs.
Arizona should be very excited to gain Justin’s verbal commitment. This year the Wildcats are graduating 11 seniors, including several butterfliers. His international experience and speed will be very valuable for the team.
Does anyone know how big this kid really is? Looks like a D1 water polo player. From the pic, he looks like a 24 yo bodybuilder.
Saw Wright at Cal with several other recruits and he and Corey Okubo were noticeably shorter than the other recruits. Maybe not Celina Li to Missy Franklin short, but more like Bootsma to Franklin proportion. Wright would be below average size for a Cal water polo player. Kinda surprised he passed on his brother’s USC for Arizona.
We talk about the 200 fly so here’s the great race by Chase Kalisz from last week at the Georgia-Florida dual meet from last week. 1.43.55 untapered and in a simple swim brief!
SWIM OF THE WEEK!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vpwwFmczAE
All three guys you mention are on the National Junior team and appear very mature physically so very talented but also hard to prognosticate given how physically advanced they already are. Lot of fast 140 pounders that will start to catch up with physical development
All three of those guys you named are elite. However, all three appear much more physically mature so it will be interesting to see how the 2014 and 2015 classes develop during their college careers as other kids only a couple of seconds behind but with 20 pounds less maturity fill out
Wright is good, but is he ELITE? Hard to tell due to his absence from World Championship Trials. I’ll give him an ELITE rating of KIND OF ELITE. Like Joe Flacco.
1:57.90 is elite at his age. I predict that his other events (and SCY) will follow.
1:57 is elite!
He’s with Andrew Seliskar and Justin Lynch the future of US butterfly on the men’s side, at least in the 200.
where is Justin Lynch going to sign?
No information but he’s from California so perhaps USC, Stanford or Cal.
Elite-O-Meter is wrong. By my calculations, Wright scores somewhere from Elite to Quite Elite on the standardized Phelpsian Scale of Eliteness (PSE) ranging from Relatively Elite to Oozing Eliteness