2025 SEC Championships
- Dates: Tuesday, February 18–Saturday, February 22
- Prelims: 9:30 am EST/ Finals 5:30 pm EST (Tuesday-5:00 EST)
- Location: Gabrielsen Natatorium — Athens, GA
- Defending Champions: Florida women (2x); Florida men (12x)
- Live Results
- Live Video: SEC Network+
- Championship Central
- Fan Guide (Men)
- Fan Guide (Women)
- Psych Sheets
- Teams: Alabama, Arkansas (women), Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas*, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt (women)
- Live Recaps
The rewriting of the SEC Championship record books continued on Saturday morning in Athens with Tennessee senior Jordan Crooks breaking the SEC Championship Record to qualify first into the final.
Crooks swam 40.58, which undercut Josh Liendo‘s Meet Record of 40.82 done last season.
That time for Crooks isn’t even a season best – he did a 40.26 at the mid-season Tennessee Invitational – but it does set him up in a center lane for a loaded final on Saturday night.
Splits Comparison:
| Jordan Crooks | Jordan Crooks | Josh Liendo | |
| PB – Midseason | New SEC Meet Record |
Old SEC Meet Record
|
|
| 25 | 8.98 | 9.09 | 9.34 |
| 50 | 10.15 (19.13) | 10.31 (19.40) | 10.28 (19.62) |
| 75 | 10.62 | 10.60 | 10.64 |
| 100 | 10.51 (21.13) | 10.58 (21.18) | 10.56 (21.20) |
| 40.26 | 40.58 | 40.82 |
Not far behind him was the former record holder Liendo, who swam 40.83. After Liendo split a 42.1 on the butterfly leg of Florida’s medley relay on Saturday, we have to assume he has something special in the tank for this 100 free. Texas’ Chris Guiliano, Tennessee’s Gui Caribe, and LSU’s Jere Hribar, who had the fastest anchor split of the medley relay, are also lurking with 41-lows in prelims.
While Liendo is not generally as explosive off the start as Crooks is, Liendo, at his best, closes the better of the two.
The overall SEC Record is also the fastest swim in history: a 39.90 done by Caeleb Dressel at the 2018 NCAA Championship meet.
This is Crooks’ 4th Championship Record of the meet:
- Tennessee 200 medley relay of 1:20.22, where Crooks split 17.42 on the anchor leg
- 17.85 in the 50 free, breaking his own 2023 record.
- Tennessee 200 free relay of 1:12.80, which also took half-a-second off the NCAA Record. Crooks swam the leadoff leg in 17.96, his fifth career 17-second flat start swim.
#GBO! It will be a helluva final.