Nick Norman Defends Pac-12 Mile Title with New Meet Record

2019 MEN’S PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIPS

Cal senior Nick Norman opened the final night of the 2019 Pac-12 Championships with a 2nd-straight title in the men’s 1650 free. His time of 14:33.96 was almost 6 seconds better than his winning time from last season and broke the Pac-12 Championship Record by more than a second.

The old Championship Record was set by Stanford’s True Sweetser in 2017 when he swam a 14:35.93. He finished 4th in this year’s race.

After a little bit of stagnation in his first 2 years at Cal, Norman erupted as a junior where he became the Cal men’s first-ever Pac-12 champion in the 1650 free. With a taper that couldn’t have been drawn up any better, he swam 14:39 at Pac-12s and dropped that to a 14:30 at NCAAs and finished 3rd in the race.

It took him until his junior season to surpass his high school best of 14:50, and he did so twice that year. He’s now surpassed his junior times at every rung of the ladder (mid-season, and conference) by a significant margin: a trend that makes him a serious contender for the NCAA title in the event later this month.

The overall conference record remains the 14:24.35 done by Chad La Tourette of Stanford at the 2012 NCAA Championships.

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Calswimfan
5 years ago

True Cal Bears don’t talk trash on comments. Most of these guys have Austin as their focus meet- True Sweester being one of them. Best of luck!

CalBear
5 years ago

True Sweetser has really fallen off after his freshman year at Stanford. Even for all the extra practices he does, he doesn’t seem to perform. I don’t see him being in contention for 2020

Superfan
Reply to  CalBear
5 years ago

I will wait to make that judgement til after ncaas.

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Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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