FLORIDA VS. VIRGINIA
- Friday, Oct. 13, 2023
- Stephen C. O’Connell Center
- Gainesville, Florida
- SCY (25 yards)
- All races uploaded to SwimSwam’s YouTube Channel
- Results on MeetMobile: “UF vs. VIRGINIA”
- Editor’s note: everyone is wearing practice suits, including pros.
WOMEN’S 400 FREE RELAY
- NCAA ‘A’ cut: 3:14.10
- NCAA ‘B’ cut: 3:16.25
Top 3:
- Virginia “A” (Gretchen Walsh 46.90, Alex Walsh 48.87, Aimee Canny 48.74, Zoe Skirboll 50.22) – 3:14.73
- Florida “A” (Isabel Ivey 49.58, Ekaterina Nikonova 50.16, Micayla Cronk 48.07, Bella Sims 47.99) – 3:15.80
- Virginia “B” (Jasmine Nocentini 49.08, Reilly Tiltmann 49.79, Maxine Parker 49.55, Tess Howley 49.56) – 3:17.98
The Virginia/Florida dual meet in Gainesville today saw a ton of great racing, including by pros like Caeleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky. For our full 4000 word live recap of the meet, click here. If you would like to see the key takeaways and race videos from the meet, you can find that here.
The women’s meet ended with a bang, seeing Virginia clock a 3:14.73 in the 400 free relay. While that’s a great time for a dual meet, the real treasure in that performance was from Gretchen Walsh on the lead-off. The younger Walsh sister popped a stunning 46.90 on the first leg.
It was a spectacular performance by Walsh. Her lifetime best sits at 45.61, a time which she swam at the 2023 NCAAs. While her swim today is a little over a second off her career mark, it does appear to be a new personal best, at least officially, in a practice suit. In fact, it looks like this is the first time Walsh has been under 47 seconds flat-start in the 100 free in a practice suit.
Moreover, as far as I can tell, Walsh’s 46.90 this afternoon is the 2nd-fastest women’s 100 free in a dual meet all-time, behind only former UVA teammate Kate Douglass‘ 46.86 from the Texas Double Dual in November of 2020. If memory serves, Douglass’ 46.86 from that November 2020 dual meet was also in a practice suit. After digging into it, it looks like Douglass and now Walsh are the only two women who have gone under 47 seconds in a practice suit, and they both did it at college dual meets.
Speaking on what the performance means for Walsh right now, it certainly sets a tone. She entered this season as the undisputed top women’s sprinter in the NCAA, now that Douglass and Maggie MacNeil have ended their collegiate careers. Given that she put up her best practice suit swim in the 100 free today, Walsh it set up nicely to really pop at mid-season. Going 46-point in a dual meet should also give her quite a bit of confidence in her campaign to take down Simone Manuel‘s NCAA and American Record mark of 45.56 as well.
Here is a video of the race:
Hoping to see something big in LCM.
54.06 from Worlds will be there…
Without a tech suit!
3 for 3 ARs at NCAAs?
Hopefully she can translate that to LCM.
i wonder what she opts to swim day 2 of NCAAs? She probably cleanly wins either the 100 back or 100 fly and it seems like Virginia is about the same strong in both events
Still worry about her LCM. Seems other girls gaining a little on surface but losing off the walls
Also, UVA needed that 46 because Bella made a serious move on anchor
Agree
Crazy optical illusion with the flags and bulkhead
Walsh was born 3 decades too late, she’d have cleaned up in the 90s. Her unsuited times are insane.
She’s cleaning up now lol
If she swam in the 1990’s, she never would of learned the underwater on her starts and turns that is used today so adding a 1/2 to 3/4 sec to each lap, she’s swimming a 48 to 49 for her 100 free. She may not even make the ‘A’ final at NCAA’s with that time back then. Otherwords, the starts and turns, not the necessarily the swim speed, is the reason for today’s faster times. On the men’s side, it may be 1 sec per lap difference due to the underwaters.