Every Single Record We Saw Broken At The 2024 NCAA Championships – Men’s Edition

This NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships was a wild ride, with stunning records, incredible racing, and even a top two finish from a swimmer from a mid-major school. With all of these records, I decided to compile them all, as well as some other times that I thought were noteworthy. Also, I am referring to the fastest-evers as SCY records, just to be clear and avoid confusion, since the differences between American, US Open, and NCAA records can be very confusing.

Day 1: Relay Madness Leads to Five Fastest-Evers

One of the most legendary days of relay swimming in NCAA history kicked off its record-breaking streak with the fastest 200 medley relay ever, with Florida’s quartet of Adam Chaney, Julian Smith, Josh Liendo and Macguire McDuff shattering ASU’s 1:20.55 from Pac-12’s just a few weeks ago. ASU also tied that mark in the same heat. NC State also claimed a new American record in 1:20.98, going under their own mark of 1:21.66.

In just a year, this record has fallen from 1:21.13 to almost being sub-1:20, and, honestly, even that barrier may be in jeopardy. Three teams have now been under 1:21, with ASU and NC State having done it twice. That’s certainly something to keep an eye on next season, but there was another legendary barrier that was almost snapped in that heat.

The 20-second barrier in the 50 back is something that has been slowly getting crept up on for a while now, and NC State’s Aiden Hayes became the latest in a series of 20 points who gave it a scare. He took 0.01 seconds off Bjorn Seeliger’s 20.08 in 20.07 on the lead-off, getting ever-so-slightly closer to that 19.9.

Along with that impressive swim, we saw another fastest-ever from Cal’s Liam Bell, who split 22.25 on the breaststroke leg, dipping under Leon Marchand’s 22.27 that led ASU to a second-place finish in 2023. Marchand was a couple of tenths off that mark for a 22.59. Other remarkable swims include Josh Liendo’s second-fastest ever 50 fly split of 18.97, becoming the second man under 19 off a rolling start, bested only by Tennessee sprinter Jordan Crooks (18.80) and Jonny Kulow’s 17.94 free split, becoming the third fastest ever off a rolling start, behind Vlad Morozov (17.86) and Dressel’s unbelievable 17.30.

And that was just the first relay.

The 800 free relay saw Harvad’s Dean Farris’s 1:29.15 record from 2019 fall to 2023 200 free champion Luke Hobson of Texas in 1:29.13 in the second-to-last heat. But then, in the following heat, the ASU superstar Marchand made his presence known with a blistering 1:28.97, becoming the first man under 1:29.

Despite this, however, Cal’s Gabriel Jett (1:30.32), Destin Lasco (1:29.60), Jack Alexy (1:30.50), and Robin Hanson (1:31.84) still dominated the field, putting up a mind-boggling 6:02.26, crushing Texas’s 6:03.42 from 2023 NCAAs.

Overall, the 800 free relays had some ridiculous swims, including the first ever sub 1:29, two 1:29’s (Lasco from a rolling start, Hobson from a flat), and six 1:30’s (Jack Alexy and Florida’s Jake Mitchell from a rolling start, along with Jett, Notre Dame’s Chris Guiliano, Alabama’s Charlie Hawke, and Indiana’s Rafael Miroslaw off flat starts). That’s nine swimmers under 1:31 in a single event. Wow. Even crazier, Hobson would even get under that 1:28.97 later this meet with a 1:28.81 in the individual, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

What a day.

Day 2: Marchand Madness Puts Itself on Full Display

While day 2 may not have had the same depth of records or fastest-evers, we saw some incredible racing in the 200 IM and the 50 free, especially the latter with the long-anticipated showdown between Liendo and Crooks. While that was a fun race to watch, the swim that had everyone talking was Marchand’s 4:02.31 500 free. That’s right, 4 minutes, 2 seconds, 31 hundredths of a second. Absurd.

In 1995, Tom Dolan went 4:08.75, becoming the first person under 4:10. In the next 29 years, the 500-yard freestyle record was taken down by 2.58 seconds, ending with Marchand’s 4:06.18 at Pac-12’s, which took down Kieran Smith’s 4:06.32, which he went twice. Then, Marchand put up a spectacular 4:02.31, going over 4 seconds faster than anyone in history. After 29 years of distance swimming history taking this record down by two and a half seconds, Marchand just went four seconds faster. Four. This amounts to him being 1.63% faster than anyone else in history, following a 0.98% drop in the record in the last 29 years.

Marchand was out in a truly astonishing 1:33.12 at the 200, a whole two seconds faster than Kieran Smith’s 4:06.32 from 2021 SECs, where he was out in 1:35.70. Also, Notably, Marchand was 1:57.94 at the 250, giving hope that a sub-4 may even be possible. He held onto his pace after that, going a similar speed to Smith. The strategy was clear. Gun it going out, then try to hang on. And boy, did it work.

So what would a 1.63% drop off of a similarly competitive record look like? Recently, we have seen Sun Yang’s 1500 free mark of 14:31.02 be challenged quite a bit, almost falling to Tunisia’s Ahmed Hafnaoui and USA’s Bobby Finke, who went 14:31.54 and 14:31.59 respectively at the 2023 Fukuoka World Champs. So what’s a 1.63% drop off of that record? Well, it’s a 14:16.82, a time so fast it would have won NCAAs this year in the 1650 by almost 14 seconds. Here are some other competitive records I matched up, along with Ledecky’s absurd 500 record of 4:24.06 from 2017.

I don’t have much else to say about that, I’ll just let it marinate with you.

Other noteworthy times from day 2 include Josh Liendo’s 18.07, almost becoming the 3rd person ever under 18 off a flat start, as well as Chris Guiliano’s 17.94 off a relay start, moving him up to the tied-3rd fastest ever with ASU’s Jonny Kulow, who got his sub 18 only the day before. As for the relays themselves, NC State reclaimed their American record in the 200 free relay with a 1:14.13 (Noah Henderson (18.93), Luke Miller (18.23), Jerry Fox (18.44), Quintin McCarty (18.53), despite placing fourth to ASU (1:13.95), Cal (1:13.86), and Florida (1:13.49), who almost got under their SCY record of 1:13.35 from last NCAAs. Destin Lasco of the Cal Bears also got under the American record in the 200 IM with a 1:37.91, erasing the old mark of 1:38.10 that he set last year to get second behind Leon Marchand’s unbelievable 1:36.81

Day 3: From the Chaos Comes Amazing Swims

I don’t even know what to say about this day. Every single time a final went in the water, something incredible happened. Record-hunting aside, this was the best day of swimming I’ve ever seen. Seriously.

We opened with the 400 IM, where, of course, Marchand did his thing and went 3:32.12, although he didn’t seem to be putting in his full effort, especially coming off of what he had done the day prior. It’s evident from his reaction and his (spoiler alert) performance on the relay at the end of the day that he was saving up for the relay, which is totally respectable. It seemed he was focused on the ASU 1-2 with his teammate, David Schlicht, who put up a stellar 3:35.27.

After that, we saw Florida’s Josh Liendo go 43.07 in the 100 fly final, making him the second fastest in history, behind only Dressel himself (42.80). Even crazier, it looked like he had a long finish, which most certainly cost him a sub-43 and possibly the record, which survived for another year. He was out in 19.90, which, as far as I can tell, is the fastest opening 50 fly ever, going out faster than Dressel’s record swim (19.99/22.81), which shows a lot of potential for him in the coming years. He’s still just a sophomore, so I think we could definitely see him be the one to finally take down that beast of a record. Also of note, he swam a 43.30 in prelims, which, at the time, was the 3rd fastest in history and the quickest prelims swim ever.

Then came the 200 freestyle. The defending champion, Luke Hobson, had just gotten his record taken away from him by Marchand two days prior, and he came in and took it right back in a mystifying 1:28.81. His worst split was a 22.74. That’s ridiculous. Also, he was a 1:29.75 in prelims, marking the first ever prelims sub-1:30

Cal’s Jack Alexy also put up a great swim, cracking 1:30 with a very respectable 1:29.75 to pick up silver. Notre Dame’s Guiliano also put up a standout swim of 1:30.38 for bronze, just missing the PB he put up on night one of 1:30.36. Funnily enough, every single swimmer in this final was a junior, meaning next year we could see an even more fun and fast race, although this one is gonna be tough to top.

This 100 breast was anyone’s game, with world champs finalist Josh Matheny of IU topping the names going into this race. Florida’s Julian Smith, Texas’s Jake Foster, and UVA’s Noah Nichols were also in the hunt coming in, but it was the Cal Bears’ Liam Bell who ended up on top. Bell had a best time of 50.50 coming into this race, and it was probably going to take a similar time to win, although likely a bit faster. But no one expected what ended up being the winning time..

Bell went 49.53. That’s right, he took almost a second off his time to break Ian Finnerty’s 2018 mark of 49.69. What. A. Swim. But, there were two incredible stories in this 100 breast final, with Towson’s Brian Benzing clocking a 50.59 to earn a second-place finish, the highest finish since Dean Farris , as I mentioned earlier. In fact, he is the fastest mid-major 100 breast performer by 0.73 seconds, topping a list that includes Penn’s Matt Fallon, a world champs medalist in the 200 breast.

Look at those splits from Bell. Opening faster than Finnerty and coming back faster than Finnerty. What a swim. Of all the races that I expected to see a SCY record fall in, the 100 breast was pretty close to the bottom of that list. But I am so happy to see this come to fruition, with Bell’s hard work paying off in the best way possible, and with Benzing putting up that incredible 50.59 for the ages. Here’s the video, go watch it. I promise, it’s worth it.

After a Brendan Burns upset in the 100 back, we got to watch a spectacle in the 400 medley relay. This relay was fast. ASU was the top seed coming in, and they had their eyes set on that 2:58.32 set by Florida in 2023. And they delivered. ASU went 2:57.32, earning the program’s first ever relay title. The quartets from Florida and NC State also went under the 2:58.32 mark, going a 2:57.52 and a 2:58.30 respectively, although Florida’s Macguire McDuff  jumped early, resulting in a Florida DQ

You’ll notice something interesting on the second leg of ASU’s relay. A 48.73 from Leon Marchand. Yep, he broke 49. Marchand already had the fastest relay split in history with a 49.2 from last year’s NCAA, but he showed off his breaststroke skills by absolutely annihilating that time. We also saw a sub-50 from Liam Bell, the recent champ in the 100 breast individual, who went 49.70. This was good for a fourth fastest in history, behind former 100 breast individual record holder Ian Finnerty, world championship medalist Kevin Cordes, and Marchand.

Also among the splits from Friday’s relays was Josh Liendo’s 42.56 100 fly, good for another fastest-ever, taking down his own mark of 42.71 from a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, this won’t count due to the DQ, but it’s something to keep in mind for the future. I have a feeling that time will fall to him again very soon. Cal’s Bjorn Seeliger also split a 40.30 for the 5th fastest rolling split in history.

Day 4: Ending With a Bang… and Some Really Fast Swims

While day 4 probably didn’t have the chance to top day 3 in terms of racing and record-breaking, it certainly did not disappoint. We started the day with a fantastic conservative swim from Cal’s Destin Lasco to go a 1:35.37, taking down ASU’s Hubert Kos’ 1:35.69 from Pac-12’s. Kos was next to him in the final, going a 1:35.90. Lasco also took down Ryan Murphy’s legendary 1:35.73 American record from 2016.

Lasco is so incredible at the back half, almost negative splitting, coming back in a truly ridiculous 47.90. Watch out for him this Olympic season, he’s going to be very dangerous.

The 100 free was a very exciting final, including Josh Liendo putting up the second-fastest time in history in 40.20. Still bested by Dressel, Liendo got under the 40.28 that he went to win last year’s NCAAs

Like I said earlier, he’s still just a sophomore, so I think that record, along with the other Dressel records, is still going to be challenged a couple more times by him in the coming years.

Then came the 200 breast. Marchand blew us all away once again. We’ve got to stop being surprised at this point. It seems every time he gets in the water, he makes history. He went 1:46.35 to crush his already insane record of 1:46.91 from last year. Matt Fallon of UPenn became the third fastest in history in 1:48.48, and he looked like an age group swimmer next to Marchand.

That swim puts him a whole 1.56 seconds faster than Will Licon, the second-fastest performer in history. My fellow swim fans, we are witnessing history. I have nothing else to say about that. It’s Marchand, what can you even say?

And speaking of Marchand, ASU closed it out with an incredible 2:43.40 400 free relay, led by Marchand’s 40.28 leadoff. That leadoff is tied for the third fastest 100 free in history, matching Liendo’s effort from last year’s NCAAs. The relay got under Florida’s mark of 2:44.07 from the 2023 NCAAs.

They averaged 40.85. That’s fast.

That closes out this historic Men’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships. This was some truly incredible swimming, and we really are lucky to be able to watch it unfold right before our very eyes. Here is every single record that was broken. I didn’t count conference records, as I would literally be here all week. I included times that were under or tied an old record, but were beaten out by someone else in the event, so if that’s the case for a time I marked it as such. I also included Brian Benzing’s mid-major record, because who wouldn’t?

That’s a lot of records. What an amazing meet.

ABOUT HENRY LYON

Henry Lyon is a distance swimmer with M3 Aquatics located in Chicago, Illinois. He has been swimming since the age of eight, and has been passionate about the sport ever since the beginning. Still only a sophomore in high school, he hopes to go on to make a difference in the sport as he gets older, starting with his work on the Illinois Swimming Age Group Committee, as well as working as a swim instructor for M3A’s swim school. He hopes to continue both of those things going into college and beyond.