2025 Pacific Swimming Far Western Championships
- Pleasanton, California
- April 3-6, 2025
- SCY (25 Yards)
- Live Results Available on Meet Mobile: “Pacific Swimming SC Far Western Championships”
At the 2025 Pacific Swimming Far Western Championships, 15-year-old Luka Mijatovic has broken his own 500-yard freestyle National Age Group record. He stopped the clock at 4:10.96, taking 1.38 seconds off his previous record time of 4:12.34, set just last November.
This is Mijatovic’s 15th individual National Age Group record and 16th overall record. That includes the 15-16 long course record in the equivalent 400 freestyle thanks to the 3:48.95 that he swam last month.
Mijatovic’s biggest drop in today’s swim came from his opening 100 yards, where he split 47.98—nearly a second faster than the previous record pace. He closed strongly as well, finishing the last 100 in 49.47 compared to 50.18. See a full split comparison between the new and old records below.
Splits Comparison:
| Luka Mijatovic | Luka Mijatovic | Drew Kibler | |
| New 15-16 NAG Record | Old 15-16 NAG Record | Next Fastest 15-16 Performance Ever | |
| 100y | 47.98 | 48.87 | 49.36 |
| 200y | 51.44 | 50.96 | 52.41 |
| 300y | 51.19 | 51.00 | 51.96 |
| 400y | 50.88 | 51.33 | 51.59 |
| 500y | 49.47 | 50.18 | 50.04 |
| Final Time | 4:10.96 | 4:12.34 | 4:15.36 |
Earlier in the meet, Mijatovic also broke the NAG record in the 1650 free (14:37.63), in addition to winning the 200 free (1:34.10), 400 IM (3:41.76), and 200 fly (1:43.57). He notched 2nd place finishes in both the 200 back (1:45.77) and 200 IM (1:45.67) as well. Each of those performances represents a new lifetime best for the distance prodigy.
Even at just 15 years old, Mijatovic’s new 500 record time would have placed 11th at the NCAA Championship meet a week ago. His 1650 record from this weekend would have earned him 12th.
The 15-year-old from the Pleasanton Seahawks is America’s best distance talent in generations, which includes breaking the oldest National Age Group Record on the books in July when he cleared Jesse Vassallo‘s 1500-meter free record that had stood since 1976.
Mijatovic turns 16 on April 22nd, giving him another full year to continue wreaking havoc on the 15-16 record books in both short course yards and long course meters.
Race Video:
Video of the race, courtesy of SwimClips! https://video.swimclips.com/video/xeo9A7N8bI9xxMKu8yJ44
Lot less circle swimming than in the past guess they’ve been working on it over the year.
He hasn’t really been circle swimming in the last 1.5 years
Hallelujah!
God smiles on America once again.
This is Mijatovic’s 15th individual National Age Group record and 16th overall record.
Any idea who has held the most NAG’s all time?
probably Michael Andrew
Probably Chas Morton
Michael Andrew for all of his faults, definitely surpassed Chad as an age group phenom.
Probably the great Chas Morton.
I don’t know the answer, and because USA Swimming has done such a poor job of record keeping historically that the answer might not exist, but I would suspect it’s MA.
Chas was an incredible age grouper and many of his records stood for a long, long time, BUT…MA had a much wider variety of records he broke, and he broke them way more often in a season (didn’t have to rely on a ‘taper meet’.)
I would guess it is MA.
Braden, can you elaborate on what you mean by MA having a larger variety of records? I’d have to go through old Swimming World magazines, but if my memory serves, Chas Morton had basically every NAG record for 10&U and 11-12 boys in SCY and LCM. Am I wrong about that, or do you mean that MA had records across more age groups than Chas Morton?
I’m sure you’re right about MA breaking them more often than Chas Morton.
Yeah I guess you’re right. I wasn’t alive back then, and the record keeping isn’t great. There’s some conflicting info, but seems like he had most or all of the 10 & under and 11-12 records at some point or another.
MA carried it on through 15-16 and 17-18 age groups better than Chas did I suppose.
Yeah, I don’t remember Chas Morton having many NAGs in the 15-16 and 17-18 age groups. It’s possible he had none. He might’ve had some in 13-14, but I think that’s when it started to taper off. I used to study those top 16 lists in Swimming World pretty closely, but that was 30 years ago.
It’s too bad there isn’t a NAG record progression here: https://data.usaswimming.org/datahub/recordssearch/recordprogressions
We need to get this Chas Morton guy down to Texas to train with Bowman
thanks for the insight Braden. Good points by all.
Wonder what Chas is doing these days….could be a good interview!
I thought we did one not too long ago but I can’t find it on the web. Maybe it was in the print mag? I’ll see if I can chase it down.
I might be gaslighting myself. I’ll see if he’s interested :/)
sounds good! he was THE MAN back in the 1980’s…he was a mythical figure in our minds…
Braden…giving you some context to what others say.
https://www.usaswimming.org/news/2017/06/15/who-is-the-greatest-age-group-swimmer-ever
I didn’t see any NAG Record counts in there, let me know if I missed them?
The article states “Chas set over 100 national age group records during his career and most of them have lasted 20 years or more. Many lasted for 25, 30 or 35 years.”
Chas Morton has to be high on the list
Found this article….
https://www.usaswimming.org/news/2017/06/15/who-is-the-greatest-age-group-swimmer-ever
Incoming trade to the lakers
Luka Mijatovic, distance counting stick, underwater travel kick. Lakers in 5
Did some crazy research and that would have won as recent as the 2012 NCAA final and would have been the D1 record back in 1994.
The US may finally have their Phelps/Dressel/Marchand level swimmer the men’s team desperately needs soon
This kid is going to win NCAA titles before graduating high school. Crazy.
– Randy
Hi Spieker (I Hope I’m pronouncing that correctly). Thank you for mentioning Me but I wanted to Clarify. This was not Me, commenting that. Though I Do support this Swim. Please let me know How you made that cool horizontal Line before my Name.
Randy
dude idk who you are or where you came from but you’re a national treasure. best of luck on your hunt for the dash
Being 410 while “only” having a 1:34 200 shows how much more potential he has. Imagine when he gets a bit older and stronger and has 130-131 200 speed what he’ll be able to do in the 500.
3:49?
Imagine if he perfects his underwaters to Marchand’s level.Sub 4 for sure, esp if he stops circle swimming in a race.