Gretchen Walsh Leads Off Relay With 21.02 50 Free, #6 Performance Of All-Time

Yanyan Li
by Yanyan Li 5

November 17th, 2022 ACC, College, National, News

2022 TENNESSEE INVITATIONAL

It’s become very clear that Gretchen Walsh is very, very fast. In her first swim of the night at the 2022 Tennessee Invite, she led off Virginia’s 200 free relay in a time of 21.02, which is her second-fastest time ever, and the fourth-fastest swim of all-time in the history of the event.

Walsh’s personal best stands at 20.95 from 2022 NCAAs, a mark which is the #3 ranked performance of all-time. Her performance today overtakes Maggie MacNeil’s 21.03 from yesterday and Erika Brown’s 21.03 from 2022 SECs as the new #4 performance of all-time.

Fastest All-Time Performances, Women’s 50 Free

  1. Kate Douglass (2022) – 20.84
  2. Kate Douglass (2022) — 20.87
  3. Abbey Weitzeil (2019) – 20.90
  4. Gretchen Walsh (2022) – 20.95
  5. Kate Douglass (2022) — 21.00
  6. Gretchen Walsh (2022)/Abbey Weitzeil (2019) — 21.02
  7. Erika Brown (2020)/Abbey Weitzeil (2019)/Maggie Macneil (2022) – 21.03

The live results were a bit off for the women’s 200 free relay, so her splits are not available.

Headed into invites, Walsh’s 2022 season-best was a 21.16, which was an extremely impressive time considering that it was done in a practice suit. Her first 50 free swim (in bona fide competition) in a tech suit was a 21.27 from prelims this morning.

Walsh still has to swim the individual 50 free later tonight, so keep an eye on her teammate Kate Douglass‘s NCAA, US Open, and American record time of 20.84 that could potentially be going down.

In fact, Douglass was also in tonight’s relay, leading off Virginia’s ‘A’ relay in a time of 21.25 (Virginia split their best swimmers into two relays, so Walsh was on the ‘B’ relay). She went a 21.17 in prelims this morning, so expect a very fast swim from her tonight as well.

In This Story

5
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

5 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
PFA
1 year ago

Missing Weitzel’s 21.01 from 2019

claire curSTAN
1 year ago

fyi Douglass went a 21.00 in ACCs last year so this would be #5, but impressive nonetheless

UVA
1 year ago

How do they swim slower with tech suits and taper? Amazing either way but isn’t that frustrating to swim faster in duel meets than a bigger meet??

Meathead
1 year ago

Think Walsh goes slower in her Indy. She’s a team player. Max hype for the relay

Swimgeek
1 year ago

fire

About Yanyan Li

Yanyan Li

Although Yanyan wasn't the greatest competitive swimmer, she learned more about the sport of swimming by being her high school swim team's manager for four years. She eventually ventured into the realm of writing and joined SwimSwam in January 2022, where she hopes to contribute to and learn more about …

Read More »