2025 ACC Swimming and Diving Championships
- February 18-22, 2025
- Greensboro Aquatic Center — Greensboro, North Carolina
- Defending Champions: NC State
- Full Event Schedule (pre-scratch timeline)
- Championship Central
- Psych Sheets
- Live Results
- Live Streaming
- Day 1 Recap | Day 2 Prelims Recap
Two swimmers were faced with a tall task during the opening preliminary session of the 2025 ACC Swimming & Diving Championships on Wednesday.
Louisville senior Gustavo Saldo and Virginia freshman Dillon Wright tied for 24th in the men’s 500 free heats in a time of 4:20.80, leading them to a swim-off for the last lane in tonight’s ‘C’ final.
In the prelims, Saldo had more front-half speed, and was a second and a half clear of Wright at the 400-yard split, with Wright rocketing home with 26.04/25.55 closing 50s.
In the swim-off, the two swimmers stayed much closer together than their splits from the prelims, flipping within three-tenths of each other at the 300, and at the 400, Wright was up by 44 one-hundredths.
Wright then made a big move on the penultimate 50, splitting 25.84 to Saldo’s 26.38 to open up nearly a full second lead (0.98), but Saldo had saved up for the push for home. Saldo blasted his way to a closing split of 23.93, catching Wright on the last stroke as the two swimmers incredibly tied again, putting up matching times of 4:21.63.
RACE VIDEO
Saldo owns a personal best of 4:17.06, set at the 2022 Purdue Invitational, while Wright set his career-best at 4:18.69 at the 2024 Tennessee Invitational this past November.
It’s not yet clear if the two swimmers will swim off again or how they’ll decide who advances to the final, though Saldo is notably listed in 24th on the results page with Wright in 25th.
Cal fifth-year Lucas Henveaux led the heats this morning in a time of 4:12.42, with NC State’s Owen Lloyd (4:14.13) and Virginia’s David King (4:14.18) ranking 2nd and 3rd.
I wish the video showed their faces when they looked at the board and saw the results. Though, the crowd reaction was pretty funny—fans of both swimmers all went, “Yea!…awwwwh.”
It might have if they swam in the warm down pool
SWIM OFF M 500 YD FR- WRIGHT
Looks like they re-uploaded, it’s on UVA Swimming YT page in case the link breaks again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1cl2qTqKtQ
Make it a best of 7 and split the point in half for each tie. No way do they tie 7 times and that way we can be really sure we have the 24th fastest guy competing in the C final.
It would be awesome to see if you could actually calculate the odds of that happening in a 500. I would think winning the lottery might be more likely…
The only way to settle this is do the next one butterfly.
I’m guessing they go to a coin flip at this point because no one needs to race 4 500s in a day to score 1 point, but another swimmer off would be hilarious.
The protocol is in place for most championships. Any race over 100 in where 2 swimmers are tied no swim off is needed if there is an open lane. If there is not and/or if three or more swimmers are tied then a swim off should be held
The rules do allow for alternate methods of resolving the tie including coin tosses or swimming different events as long as the coaches, athletes, and referee are in agreement.
Brutal!
I’d love to see a video if one exists.
I’d love to even see the results of that event. It’s not on the “live results.”
Yes it is, you need to scroll down a bit due to it being swam in a different pool
I’d keep an eye on the UVA swimming YouTube channel. They post videos of every race. Not sure if this would be on there though
It’s up.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOaN00KhD20
Love that they had an announcer and a big crowd reaction!