2025 NCAA Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships
- March 19-22, 2025
- Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center — Federal Way, Washington
- Short Course Yards (25 yards)
- Start Times: Prelims: 10 AM ׀ Finals: 6 PM (Pacific Daylight Time)
- Meet Central
- Official Psych Sheets
- SwimSwam Preview Index
- Live Results
- Live Stream
- Live Recaps:
Gretchen Walsh‘s NCAA career has come to a close. She leaves the ranks of college swimming as one of the most decorated swimmers in history, making a case for herself as the greatest yards swimmer of all time. Now, Walsh will turn her focus to her pro career and international swimming, where she’s already seen success in the last year.
Hail to the Queen! Thank you Gretchen for an incredible four years at UVA. Looking forward to cheering you on in LA and beyond.
The best part of this is the joy of belly flopping in the background
That bellyfloppjng in the background was so posed and staged. And please please tell me we won’t have to endure photos of Gretchen Walsh with a live goat and/or sitting on a throne via UVa Sports Info like we did with Douglass last year. (Yes I can avert my eyes.) Here a goat, there a goat, every year a goat goat when it comes to UVa Sports Info hype.
Hating is a lifestyle.
I appreciate that she immediately referenced short course meters, during the segment related to goals. That’s her strength. Don’t run away from it in deference to conventional wisdom. Those numbers can be taken lower once she figures out the optimum stroke count and timing the wall entry.
Gretchen to- do list:
– up the aerobic base, lots of 200 free work and back end 100 pace. Maybe do the 200 free unsuited a couple times, like she did when the 100 plateaued a couple years back.
– overhaul freestyle catch and make sure the elbows aren’t dropping with fatigue.
– continue to vibe with butterfly. Seems like she is close to mastery on that front. Lean into it. Chase 53s (again back half 50s pace all day long)
– maybe after a year or 2 of working on over the water freestyle, take a stab at that 50 fly wr by training to start the catch a little further out and upping the stroke rate.
I’m sure she knows what to do and she’s definitely can improves her performance especially in freestyle.
Okay Boomer, pun intended.
“I have really explored my own gift I have in swimming.” Oh, okay.
I mean yea she does have inherent physical advantages. Girls tall and jacked af
I think it is perfectly legitimate to an acknowledge when you are gifted and to take credit for exploring that gift to it’s fullest extent. I’d argue that there are not a whole lot of non gifted sprint champions. Seen a few distance swimmers that just willed there way to victories though. Maybe that ability is in reality a gift as well.
Not to be like JD Vance with Zelensky, but I have never once heard Gretchen Walsh say thank you to her caffeine-drink type of sponsors, or her suit sponsor, or the UVa boosters who put up her NIL money and the NIL money for her sister and UVa’s recruited mercenary pro teammates like Katie Grimes and Claire Curzan. Maybe she is embarrassed by it or thinks it is insignificant. All I hear are things like “I am proud of myself”, “I am gifted” and “I am amazed by myself.”
look, as a poor millennial alum with a connection to the team (my name is in the fact book), who buys her suits for my kids and now contributes (however small the amount) to the virginia athletics foundation, earmarked for the women’s swim team… I don’t need a shoutout. I support what she does for my school, the sport, and who she is as a person. I’m proud that SHE is proud of herself… she oughta be! She “thanks” people like me by continuing to be herself and swimming really freaking fast.
and either way – her partnerships with arena, celsius, sporti, and others are lucrative both ways… I don’t think those companies thank her for bringing them $$.
Wondering if you have a similar problem with men being confident? She should be amazed by herself, we all are! If you have been paying attention to her career you’d know she’s endured a fair share of disappointment, people calling her washed, overrated, a short course merchant. She should celebrate this.
I hope KD will stuck around throught LA games.
can’t see why she wouldn’t if she continues to go fastrr
In an interview with swim swam earlier this year she said she wanted to retire after LA
UVA has done all they can for you
Greg Meehan welcomes you to the Farm, Gretchen.
The lead is that she will be training with Virginia and KD.
If that’s so then she’ll finally be able to cash her 300k swim earnings to a down payment on a nice home in Charlottesville. I’d love to see a cribs edition of that on TV
$300K doesn’t go very far in Charlottesville, unfortunately.
….as a down payment?
I would not be shocked if Alex Walsh retires. She’s done it all in the sport & by all indications has a lot of attractive career options outside of the pool. Strictly a function of whether it’s making her happiest to continue & not a function at all of needing to continue competitive swimming to earn a good living. Just my guess
I would be shocked if she didn’t train at Virginia, assuming she continues swimming, but I’d be a little less surprised if she retired this year. I still think both are unlikely.
Agreed. If she continues swimming she is most certain to remain with DeSorbo. Makes no sense whatsoever to mess with that recipe for success that has served so well & so consistently well. Alex hasn’t missed making a team at any selection meet since she started with DeSorbo.
She can still medal if there is a new official.
No swimmer’s retiring before a home Olympics.
Lily king is supposed to be done before LA28
Lily King would also be over the age of 30 by 2028
You’re so convinced that a normal Olympics will be happening on American soil in 2028. Cute. If they do take place, the only other countries invited will be Russia, Hungary, Belarus and North Korea.
Time for Alex to move to Texas — College Station or Austin.
I might be wrong but IIRC, Alex mentioned in the Unfiltered Waters podcast episode she did that she plans on turning pro, but isn’t sure if she’ll swim up to LA. Not sure if anything’s changed since then
Alex told us in January that she will go pro, stay at Virginia, and take things year by year. Still uncertain about LA2028.
https://swimswam.com/alex-walsh-dropping-400-im-from-championship-lineup-will-go-pro-but-unsure-about-2028/