The Stanford men’s swimming and diving team has released their roster for the 2023-2024 season, and a lot of big names are missing.
Key contributors Zhier Fan, Andrei Minakov, Ron Polonsky, Jonathan Affeld, and Leon MacAlister are absent from the team’s roster this season.
According to Stanford head coach Dan Schemmel, Minakov, Polonsky, and Fan are redshirting with the ‘potential to compete winter quarter’ (known colloquially in swimming as the spring semester). Affeld and MacAlister, meanwhile, have retired from swimming.
- Fan – Fan was a member of the USA Swimming Junior World Cup Team in 2021 and swam on a team that set a World Junior Record in the mixed 200 medley relay. He was the #11 recruit in the high school class of 2022, and a Junior National Team member. As a freshman he swam 51.97 in the 100 yard breaststroke that ranks him 4th all-time in program history. He was about a tenth away from an NCAA invite, and Stanford used Polonsky to swim breaststroke on their medley relays, so he wasn’t an NCAA Championship qualifier last year, but projected to be one in 2024.
- Minakov – the 2022 NCAA Champion in the 100 fly, Minakov’s second NCAA season was a little less successful, but still saw him win the Pac-12 title in the 100 fly and place 4th at the NCAA Championships in that event. In a wild offseason, he transferred to crosstown rivals Cal, then transferred back, and he told SwimSwam this summer that he would make the decision on this season “later in the year.” Minakov is Russian, and with Russia’s status for the Olympics still up-in-the-air, he would have less motivation to redshirt the season if Russia couldn’t compete in Paris.
- Polonsky – As a sophomore last year, Polonsky finished 5th in the 200 IM at the NCAA Championships, 11th in the 100 breaststroke, and 36th in the 200 breaststroke, in addition to contributing to the team’s freestyle relays. He occupies a similar role for his native Israel internationally, including contributing to a history-making 7th place 400 free relay at Worlds earlier this year. At 2022 Worlds, he came very close to making an individual final, placing 9th in the 200 IM.
- MacAlister – An Australia native, MacAlister had one season of eligibility remaining at Stanford. He tied for 16th in prelims of the 100 back at last year’s NCAA Championship meet but lost a swimoff to Tommy Janton, and also finished 21st in the 200 back. He earned individual All-America honors in 2022, placing 11th in the 100 back and 5th in the 200 back (20 total points). He also led off Stanford’s medley relays each of the last two seasons at NCAAs, and in total has seven All-America honors.
- Affeld swam a long course meet in the summer, but opted not to return for his 5th year of eligibility. Last year, he was a key relay contributor for the Cardinal, and as a junior he nearly scored individually, placing 18th at NCAAs in the 200 IM (1:42.57). He was a three-time NCAA qualifier for Stanford.
Minakov will be training at Stanford for the rest of the month before returning to Russia for meets in November and December. Polonsky is overseas training, while Fan is training with his home club Metroplex Aquatics in Plano, Texas.
Return dates for all three are to be determined, Schemmel says.
While Stanford does bring in the #5 recruiting class in the country, a group that includes #1 overall recruit Rex Maurer and World Championship teamer Henry McFadden, their depth takes a hit for the fall semester, at least, without the five swimmers above.
The team does return its top diver Jack Ryan, who placed 3rd on 1-meter at NCAAs, as well as Ethan Foster, who was 11th on platform. They also return two other individual scorers from NCAAs: Luke Maurer (5 points) and Aaron Sequeira (4 points). In total, 31 of their 65.5 individual points from NCAAs are back on the roster this year.
Their additions will give them very good relays too, with a top five caliber 800 free relay if the freshman class can live up to the billing.
This is fishy. Someone, please spill the beans. What’s going on with the Stanford men’s team?
The NCAA needs to stop all these schools from bringing in swimmers in the spring semester just to compete at NCAA’s. Cal did it last year. I believe Sates was that way at Georgia. Do you think these guys are coming for the education? Hell no. Coaches should be ashamed at such low level tactics and the NCAA even more so for allowing it. Kids should be required to swim fall semester to compete at NCAA’s. It’s one season, not two. Either you redshirt a season or you don’t.
A lot of college football and basketball players aren’t going to school for the education either. The days of ‘student athlete’ are long gone for many.
The rules say you can do it so it’s an even playing field. There are many reasons why someone would start 2nd semester, and most aren’t bad reasons.
Sure but even if all three come back, Stanford will only have 25 swimmers on their roster. Significantly less than any other D1 team. Cal has at least 36 currently with 3 more divers than Stanford. Texas, Ivy Leagues and other D1 teams are the same.
Cal does this every year, and are the team that (by far) benefits from it the most
Sates is the most ridiculous example because he was in the states for all of 8 weeks. At least with him Georgia took an APR hit, and some coaches have incentives built around that. If you go back to Kalisz at Georgia, it’s clear Jack never cared much about academics though.
Counter evidence:
https://swimswam.com/georgias-van-landeghem-wins-elite-89-award/
https://swimswam.com/wendy-trott-wins-ncaas-elite-89-award/
https://swimswam.com/georgias-tynan-stewart-wins-mens-division-elite-89-award/
https://swimswam.com/georgias-tynan-stewart-wins-ncaa-elite-89-award-for-second-year-in-a-row/
Though the Kalisz thing is definitely a mark against.
And Callie Dickinson with the SEC Scholar Athlete of the Year (or something like that, I can’t remember the exact name).
What happened to Kalisz at Georgia?
https://swimswam.com/jack-bauerle-suspended-indefinitely-georgia-ncaa-alleges-severe-breach-contract/
Does anyone understand what is going on at Stanford? It seems unlikely that three top swimmers would redshirt first semester and come back second semester to swim short course when they would be ramping up long course for their respective Olympic trials? Stanford had the #5 recruiting class in 2023 but small numbers. Now they only have 22 swimmers + 2 divers on their roster? This has to be the smallest roster in Div 1. It looks like problems will continue with a small group of commits for ‘24 and not as impressive as previous years? Lastly, why does Stanford seem to place so much emphasis on international swimmers at the expense of Top 50-100 U.S. swimmers in each class?… Read more »
It sort of seems unlikely…but the other pressures at a place like Stanford does make some sense to take a quarter off classes to focus on training, IMO. If you listen to what Claire Curzan said about the pressures of Stanford, that decision kind of makes sense to me.
I would guess that if Russian arhletes are cleared to compete in Paris, then Minakov will redshirt the whole year; if not then he’ll come back for NCs.
Not sure where he’s at with his degree, but if he graduates from Stanford in December then you can bet he’ll be swimming for Cal in January.
I think his struggle has been wanting both the Stanford education and the Durden training.
jeez – what is going on a Stanford? Doesn’t sound good. Could Fan be thinking about transferring?
Sources say it is a possibility Minakov might use his remaining eligibility to swim Division 3
Bruh at this point everyone’s going D3 and the D1 to D3 line continues who will be the next big name to go D3?
Why is no one talking about WHY minakov transferred to cal and then back to Stanford???
And how was that even possible?
Affeld was class of ‘24, so still had 2 years left.
He had two years left if you count the COVID 5th year correct. I think for class of 2024, we can no longer assume COVID years – I think that the momentum on that is dwindling a bit.
How does this affect Greg Meehan’s legacy?
This just reminded me… where’d Relay Names Guy go?
They were terminally broken hearted after Fukuoka