Katie Grimes Swims 15:26.17 1650 Free To Become #5 Performer Of All-Time

Yanyan Li
by Yanyan Li 0

December 11th, 2022 Club, National, News

2022 SPEEDO WINTER JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS – WEST

16-year-old Katie Grimes saved her best performance for the last night of the 2022 Winter Junior Championships, where she swam a massive best time of 15:26.17 to become the fifth-fastest swimmer of all-time in the women’s 1650 free. With that swim, she broke her own Speedo Juniors — West meet record time of 15:34.74 set last year, as well as Katie Ledecky‘s pool record time of 15:28.36 set back during 2012 Winter Nationals.

However, despite breaking her pool record, Grimes is still nearly ten seconds away from Ledecky’s national age group record time of 15;15.17 and remains the second-fastest performer in the U.S. 15-16 age group.

Grimes is now the seventh female in history to get under the 15:30-barrier in the 1650 free. She joins her former club teammate Erica Sullivan in the sub-15:30 club, meaning that two out of the seven fastest women’s 1650 free performers of all-time were Sandpipers of Nevada.

All-Time Top Performers, Women’s 1650 Free:

  1. Katie Ledecky, Stanford — 15:03.31 (2017)
  2. Erica Sullivan, Sandpipers of Nevada — 15:23.81 (2019)
  3. Katie Hoff, North Baltimore Aquatic Club — 15:24.35 (2008)
  4. Leah Smith, Virginia — 15:25.30 (2016)
  5. Katie Grimes, Sandpipers of Nevada — 15:26.17 (2022)
  6. Brittany MacLean, Georgia — 15:27.84 (2014)
  7. Kate Ziegler, FISH — 15:29.15 (2007)

From looking at the splits below, you can see that Grimes saw major improvements throughout the entirety of her race. Last year, when she went 15;34.74, she was holding primarily 57-low and 56-high splits, whereas this year she was holding 56-mids and lows. At the 1000-yard mark of Grimes’ 2022 swim, she was out in 9:22.11, compared to being out in 9:27.89 in 2021.

Grimes’ time from Saturday is over 30 seconds faster than the fastest time in the NCAA for the 2022-23 season, which is Abby McCulloh’s 15;57.08.

Comparative Splits, Katie Grimes 2021 Winter Juniors vs. Katie Grimes 2022 Winter Juniors:

Split Katie Grimes 2021 Speedo Winter JR Champs – West Katie Grimes 2022 Speedo Winter JR Champs – West
100y 53.54 53.57
200y 57.06 56.56
300y 57.23 56.68
400y 57.45 56.54
500y 57.50 56.63
600y 57.07 56.02
700y 57.18 56.14
800y 57.20 56.40
900y 56.84 56.69
1000y 56.82 56.88
1100y 56.70 56.20
1200y 56.86 56.11
1300y 56.80 56.26
1400y 56.93 56.54
1500y 57.01 56.50
1600y 55.78 56.01
1650y 26.75 26.44
Final Time 15:34.74 15:26.17

Grimes’ 1650 free swim was her first out of three races in Sunday’s final session. Later on, she finished second in the 200 back and 200 fly to her teammate Bella Sims in both races, posting times of 1:52.04 and 1:54.92 respectively. Both marks were slightly off her best times of 1:51.46 in the 200 back and 1:53.93 in the 200 fly.

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About Yanyan Li

Yanyan Li

Although Yanyan wasn't the greatest competitive swimmer, she learned more about the sport of swimming by being her high school swim team's manager for four years. She eventually ventured into the realm of writing and joined SwimSwam in January 2022, where she hopes to contribute to and learn more about …

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