2018 NCAA Division III Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships
- Dates: Wednesday, March 21 – Saturday, March 24
- Swimming: prelims 10am, finals 6pm
- Location: IU Natatorium, Indianapolis, IN (Eastern Time Zone)
- Defending Champions: Emory (results)
- Psych Sheet
- Video
- Live Results
- Championship Central
Freshman David Fitch of Kenyon did flip turns on his butterfly leg of the 400 medley relay in heats on Thursday morning at the highest-stakes meet of the year, the NCAA Division III Championships. While an unorthodox method for turning in butterfly and breaststroke, where open turns are the rule, flip turns are perfectly legal as long as the swimmer still touches the wall with both hands prior to turning.
Using flip turns in fly and breast, while still the exception to the rule, is becoming a thing. Purdue’s Joe Gardner did flip turns in his 100 breast at B1G Championships in February and the ensuing video stirred up a great deal of interest. You can watch Gardner’s race here, and read the interview with SwimSwam in which he discusses his technique.
The jury is still out on whether or not flip turns or open turns are faster in breast and fly. Fitch split 22.60/26.43 for 49.03 in the medley relay heats this morning. He went 48.18 at the Kenyon-hosted Total Performance Invitational in December, when the Lords won with 3:16.56. That is a misleading figure, though, because all four of the Kenyon legs were slower here at NCAAs than at Total Performance Invite in December. Fitch’s best flat-start 100 fly is 48.49, also from December 2017.
| NCAAs | Prelims 3/2018 | Total Performance Invite | Finals 12/2017 | |
| Back | Ben Baturka | 48.69 | Ben Baturka | 48.15 |
| Breast | Alexander Law | 55.78 | Humphrey Pruett | 55.56 |
| Fly | David Fitch | 49.03 | David Fitch | 48.18 |
| Free | Tommy Weiss | 45.38 | Reilly Shields | 44.56 |
| 3:18.88 | 3:16.56 |
The Kenyon quartet finished ninth out of heats in Indianapolis, which was another blow in an already difficult day that saw the Lords fail to qualify any 200 freestylers for the A final, effectively allowing Emory to slip past them into a projected second place in the team standings.
Elizabeth Tinnon did flip turns for the first two walls in the 100 breaststroke swimming for Texas. She was darn fast at it too.
48.34 for 4th WITH the turns in the A final. So… jury still out?
whut
Only 2 data points so far. Gardner did it at prelims of big 10s, then removed one of them at night and got faster.
Fitch did it here and I’m assuming he didn’t do it in December (need to have that verified) and he went .85 faster in December. Also he went 48.50 flat start in the same session.
Kenyon also got 9th in this race by .29 so maybe wasn’t the time to experiment.
Marcel Gery did a fly flip turn and broke the World record I think in the 50 scm fly back in the early 90’s.
He Erika Brown’d it??!
Maybe the Fly Flipturn is slower. Or, maybe it’s the next Berkoff Blastoff or Kitajima Kickout.
I gotta respect someone giving it a try. Kenyon can certainly afford it.
relay team swims slower, and we’re analyzing how they swam…..slower?
He did them in the individual event and is an A finalist… third event of the AM for frosh flyer.