2023 DECEMBER HUNTINGTON BEACH SECTIONALS
- December 14-18, 2023
- Huntington Beach, CA
- SCY (25 yards)
- Meet Mobile: 2023 CA Dec CA CV Speedo Sectionals at GWSC
After shattering his own 13-14 NAG record in the 1650 on night 1 and taking over the 13-14 400 IM NAG on day 2, 14-year-old Luka Mijatovic was on record watch in the 500 free on night 3, where he was already the fastest 13-14 boy by over seven seconds.
After clocking 4:21.87 in the morning, Mijatovic found another gear tonight to post a mind-boggling 4:15.71, clearing his own 13-14 record by 1.36 seconds.
To put that into perspective, that time would rank #2 among 15-16 boys, just 0.35 seconds behind Drew Kibler. He would also be the 16th fastest athlete in the NCAA so far this season. He’s also 3.4% faster than the second-fastest swimmer in the 13-14 age group, which appears to make this swim the most dominant NAG record on the books.
Since March of this year, Mijatovic has lowered the record by just over nine seconds. The second-best swimmer in age group history and former record-holder is Lleyton Plattel, who swam 4:24.79 in 2017.
Compared to his swim in November, Mijatovic was out almost four-tenths slower at the 100, but descended the next four 100s to nearly even split his race. He’s made remarkable improvements to his back-half since first taking over the record. See a split comparison below.
| Luka Mijatovic | Luka Mijatovic | Luka Mijatovic | |
| New Record | Old Record (November 2023) | Old Record (March 2023) | |
| 100y | 49.42 | 49.03 | 49.49 |
| 200y | 52.33 | 52.33 | 53.48 |
| 300y | 52.00 | 52.84 | 54.02 |
| 400y | 51.79 | 52.27 | 53.84 |
| 500y | 50.17 | 50.60 | 51.67 |
| Total Time | 4:15.71 | 4:17.07 | 4:22.50 |
Mijatovic is entered in the 1000 free and the 200 IM for the final day of the meet. He already broke his own 13-14 NAG record in the former during his record-breaking 1650 free (8:53.01), but will look to lower it. Mijatovic will also look to climb the 200 IM all-time list, where he is currently #9 with his entry time of 1:49.08.
He just did it again in the 1000…unbelievable. Also crazy how deep the Sandpipers are…
8:46 in 1000…incredible
He negative split it too! 4:23.6 first 500 4:22.8 second 500! 1.5 seconds away from the 15-16 NAG record and 3 seconds away from the 17-18 NAG record
8:46 1000 free. I’m dead
He’d be 4:13 if his coach can tell him to stop circle swimming in races
Not like the coach is the one swimming the race. At the end of the day it’s up to the swimmer to make the change.
For all non-Americans, this converts to these ranges:
400FR SCM: 3:39.44 – 3:43.74
400FR LCM: 3:48.22 – 3:50.07
At age 14. Nuts.
Conversion is always wrong and favours scy, this swim is incredible but realistically is roughly on par with his 3.52 from summer (which is still an improvement because of turns)
His post-race reaction was ICE COLD. This dude goes hard.
bruh theres a rumor on the pool deck that he wanted to go 4:14 so he was like meh afterwards 💀
great performance luka. keep it healthy and fast.
.ok guidance and motivation, but why to convert pools and times?
what you do in scy = it is scy time. lcm=lcm.