Guilherme Costa Breaks 3rd South American Record of the Weekend at U.S. Open

2019 U.S. OPEN SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Brazilian swimmer Guilherme Costa has wrapped up a historic U.S. Open Championship meet with a 3rd Brazilian and South American Record. The latest came in the men’s 1500 freestyle, where he won in 14:55.49 – almost 8 seconds better than the runner-up from the United States Jordan Wilimovsky (15:03.29).

Costa’s swim improved upon his own record of 14:59.01 from the 2017 Brazilian Open – a swim that happened 2 years and 1 day ago from Saturday.

Costa came to the meet straight from an altitude training camp at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff along with a group of Brazilian swimmers from Minas TC.

Known as “Big Dog” among his peers, Costa used an incredible last 500 meters to pull away from Wilimovsky – which was a surprise given that Wilimovsky, who has been the United States’ best in this event, is training primarily for the open water 10km race and should have the endurance to hang with anybody at the end of a 1500 meter race.

And to be clear: this was a pretty good swim by Wilimovsky’s own standards. At in-season meets, his best is usually between 15:01 and 15:05 in this event, including a 15:05.96 at last year’s Winter Nationals.

But this highlights what has been a theme of Costa’s swims so far at this meet. In the 400 free on Friday, where he broke the Brazilian Record in 3:46.57, it was a last 100 meter split of 55.54 that carried him to the mark. In the 800 free, the effect was a little more muted, but still noticeable in the back-half of his race (his front-half/back-half spread was only 1.1 seconds).

Comparing Costa and Wilimovsky’s splits:

Guilherme Costa Jordan Wilimovsky Comparison
100m 57.33 58.64 -1.31
200m 59.78 60.47 -0.69
300m 59.82 60.62 -0.8
400m 60.17 60.24 -0.07
500m 60.37 60.36 0.01
600m 60.25 59.82 0.43
700m 60.16 60.02 0.14
800m 60.32 59.81 0.51
900m 60.01 60.17 -0.16
1000m 60.1 60.69 -0.59
1100m 60.09 60.45 -0.36
1200m 59.13 60.89 -1.76
1300m 59.99 60.73 -0.74
1400m 59.91 60.75 -0.84
1500m 58.06 59.63 -1.57
Total Time 14:55.49 15:03.29

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About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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