American Deaflympian Matthew Klotz has broke three World Deaf Swimming Records last week in Irvine at the 2018 US National Championships.
First, in a time trial, he swam a 23.14 in the 50 long course meter freestyle, which broke the World Record of 23.34 done by Marcus Titus at the 2015 World Deaf Swimming Championships. Klotz’s previous personal best was 23.46 from 2016.
Titus, one of the most successful deaf swimmers in history, was a three-time member of the USA Swimming National Team and a 12-time NCAA All-American at Arizona.
Then, in the 50 back, Klotz broke his own World Record twice: first with a 26.06 in prelims, which tied him for 20th place in the heats, and then again with a 25.95 in the C-Final, which placed him 19th overall. Klotz’s previous World Record of 26.26 was done at the 2017 Deaflympics.
Klotz is a rising junior at LSU, where last season he had matching 18th-place finishes for LSU at the SEC Championships in both the 100 yard (47.57) and 200 yard (1:43.80) backstrokes. He also swam on LSU’s 8th-place 200 free relay, with a team-best split of 19.52.
There were no strobe lights or hand signals used to start races at this meet.
Watch the C Final in the 50 back below:
Do they swim those C and D finals later in the night after the A and B?
They do.
Amazing accomplishment! Just curious about how the start works for him?
At major meets, all of the blocks usually have strobe lights behind them (and, frankly, these days, most decent pools have them too). No strobe lights at nationals. They’re supposed to be using hand signals, but as you can see from the video, they’re not. So for whistle and take your mark, he follows the swimmer next to him. He can apparently faintly make out the starter’s tone when everyone is very quiet and if he concentrates super intently on it.
Certainly not ideal.
That’s honestly quite inconsiderate of USA swimming for not being accommodating towards him.
Quite horrible really.
Is it just at this pool that there are no strobe lights, or is it protocol for all nationals held?
Good for him!