2025 ACC Swimming and Diving Championships
- February 18-22, 2025
- Greensboro Aquatic Center — Greensboro, North Carolina
- Championship Central
- Live Results
2025 SEC Championships
- Dates: Tuesday, February 18–Saturday, February 22
- Location: Gabrielsen Natatorium — Athens, GA
- Live Results
This weekend at the ACC and SEC conference championships, we saw 5 NCAA relay records get broken. But they weren’t just broken by a tenth or a second or two… they were obliterated. They were demolished to the point that SwimSwam commenters were asking questions like “Has swimming become too fast?”
I am here to say that no, swimming has not gotten too fast.
I am also here to take a deeper dive into three of those records (Men’s 200 Free/400 Medley, Women’s 400 Medley) and dissect just how utterly disgusting they are after this weekend.
The best part of all of this? In just 4-5 weeks time, we will see all of these teams back on the blocks prepared to go fast again. Will we see more history made come NCAA Championships?
The evolution of sports. Never ending improvements in coaching, dryland, stretching, nutrition, sleep routine etc.. Tom Brady’s TB12 Method optimized his sleep routine (9 hrs./night), nutrition, strength training, mobility among other things for maximum performance on the football field. Other well known athletes such as LeBron (spends 1.5M on body wellness per year) and Joe Burrow (8pm bedtime during the season) are also doing this. Probably happening in swimming too, but just as not well publicized.
Great video as always, Coleman.
More than anything, I’m curious about why times are getting so much faster these days, particularly in short course, but also in long course. My best guess is the always-boring “many factors”, but that doesn’t explain what the factors are. The one I always hear about are 1) and 2) below, but I don’t believe that they alone can account for the dramatic, sustained improvements in our sport.
1) The “Phelps effect”. The idea being that after Phelps’ record 8 golds in 2008, participation and talent in the age-group ranks rose. But 2008 was 17 years ago! Summer McIntosh was a baby. If Phelps’ wins caused a surge in popularity, that doesn’t explain how the… Read more »
Great to see the continued progress but let’s wait and see how it plays out long course yes looking at short course meters makes a lot of sense while still having short course yard meets
Need to realize only 5% of the world swims scy so Much easier to “obliterate “
% of the actual swimming world would be a lot bigger
So when we are looking at roster limits, NIL, the possible future demise of several programs….and the sky is falling because of so many changes in college athletics. I’ve looked across the board at all the conference meets this past week and there is FAST swimming in all of them. Every single conference produced great swims and times…the athletes are swimming fast and looks to me like great coaching all around. I can’t fathom programs getting dropped and swimmers no place to go after seeing how thriving the conference meets were this past week.
Love this. Let’s take it back to the 2002 Women’s NCAA Championships when Natalie Coughlin shattered NCAA records in the 100 back (49.9) and 100 fly (50.1). For context, both times would have placed 14th in the 100 free that year.
Fast forward to last year. Gretchen Walsh posted a 47.4 in the 100 fly and a 48.1 in the 100 back. Those times would have placed 10th and 29th in the 100 free, respectively. One spot higher if you remove her from the event.
In 2002, no one panicked or walked away from the sport. Instead, swimming continued to grow, largely fueled by what I call the Michael Phelps effect.
These performances are incredible for the sport, and there’s… Read more »
Time to move a significant number of NCAA events to SCM. We could have had some WR’s this past weekend.
If the NCAA stays at a 25y meet for championships (conference and National), then at least have winter invites at SCM. Or, Vice-versa: Winter meets SCM, conference and Nationals SCY.
While I agree with you that SCM should become more of a priority, there most certainly would not have been any World Records this weekend lol.
wasn’t on the weekend I guess but I think a WR in the women’s 4×200 free relay could’ve been possible. It looks like 1:41 in SCY converts to about 1:52 in SCM and the actual SCM WR is a 1:52.5 average
Crooks holds the record in the SCM 50 free and just PBed in SCY here?
No offense, but you didn’t take a serious look at the question.
When good HS age swimmers look at what it takes to compete at the highest level collegiately and feel disassociated, it’s a bad thing.
We either need to totally change what we think college swimming is – not necessarily something you do right out of high school – or get serious about implementing rules to protect what it was.
And before someone comes with the obvious comment of kids can just get faster, pause for a second and think what you are saying. The system that is developing is going to lead to more home schooling ( which is fine for some people but can be harmful if… Read more »
We moved past the point where elite level age group swimming was unhealthy 50 years ago.
I completely disagree. The tend in swimming is less training and the intimidating times at the top are offset by the vote of confidence high schoolers get from college coaches recruiting them.
A lot of the explosion in sprinting times getting faster is actually because they are training fewer yards with greater emphasis on technique. The sport has evolved way past the old idea of pounding out yardage to get faster. The shift toward less training has been going on for a decade, and as college coaches continue to cut yards, sprinters are going faster and faster. Club coaches are somewhat behind, but they’re learning and adapting. The days of 70k yards per week are gone except for milers.… Read more »