There’s a fairly old school of thought that a great 200 backstroke should be either even split or negative split. USC backstroke star, Patrick Mulcare, appears to be subscribing to that belief, at least in his dual meet 200 backs this Fall. Out of the 5 times Mulcare has swum the 200 back this season, 4 of them have been negative split. The only time Mulcare didn’t negative split the 200 back this season was at the College Challenge when Mulcare went 1:40.44 to win the event.
When asked whether Mulcare’s negative splitting was a full-time strategy or just something he’s doing while training, USC Head Coach Dave Salo replied “Pat generally goes into a higher gear his last 75 of his 200. Our training focuses on pushing harder into the last 75. I think he just likes to run people down”.
Looking at the breakdown of Patrick Mulcare‘s 200 back splits this Fall seems to back up what Coach Salo said.
| USC vs Cal Poly | USC vs UCSB | USC vs Arizona | USC vs ASU | 2017 College Challenge |
| 26.20 | 25.70 | 25.74 | 25.12 | 23.76 |
| 27.48 (53.68) | 27.73 (53.43) | 27.51 (53.25) | 26.89 (52.01) | 25.56 (49.32) |
| 26.83 | 26.71 | 26.66 | 26.00 | 25.13 |
| 26.41 (53.24) | 26.49 (53.20) | 26.04 (52.70) | 25.52 (51.52) | 25.99 (51.12) |
| 1:46.92 | 1:46.63 | 1:45.95 | 1:43.53 | 1:40.44 |
The noticeable outlier this Fall is his race at the College Challenge, which was also his fastest time going into his mid-season invite, and ranks #2 in the nation this season after the first week of invites. The biggest difference in the splitting of that race is that he took the first 50 out much faster, about 2 seconds faster than the average of his first 50 on his other 200 backs this Fall. His fastest 200 back ever, which he swam at the NCAAs last season, followed the same race strategy as his College Challenge performance this year. Mulcare went 1:37.80 at the NCAAs, so all of his splits were a little faster, but it followed the same pattern.
| 2017 NCAA Finals |
| 23.17 |
| 24.72 (47.89) |
| 24.63 |
| 25.28 (49.91) |
| 1:37.80 |
One possible explanation for the difference in race strategy is that Mulcare feels more comfortable taking the 200 back out more aggressively when he’s rested. He still pushes the 3rd 50 hard, but he doesn’t build into the finish on the last 50 the way he has been doing at dual meets. At the NCAAs last season, Mulcare finished 3rd and had the fastest split in the field on the 3rd 50, but had the 6th fastest split on the last 50.
Could be using this tactic early on to build his back end speed where as front end speed with come later in the college season. Emily Seebohm takes this tactic a lot when racing at lower level meets and look at her last 50 in her 200s
Negative splitting now means to me he needs to train harder!
It’s definitely much harder to be agressive the first 100 of a 200 back when not rested, at least in my experiences.
Yep, no legs, no fast 200 back.
Disagree. The NCAA has people going 1:43s in duel meets. This is fast by any standards especially in a speedo in season. People go out 50. Or 51 in duel meets all the time. This is when they are tired and don’t have their legs under them.
‘Unrested’ and ‘untapered’ are starting to mean a lot less nowadays with the shift in modern training culture (see Texas’s tech suit practices)
That 1:43 is 8 seconds off the NCAA record. I think you made my point.
And that 8 seconds is basically 2/3 of a length of the pool. Lochte was doing a 1:36 ten years ago. I:43 is no longer “fast by any standards.”
He should go out faster.
Exactly! If I know Salo, he wants to get him to experiment going out faster.
Remember when Murphy went out a 46.3 and came back in a 49?
What does that have to do with this???
Yeah, and that came really late in the meet, which made it even more impressive. Akin to Dressel’s 40.0 free on the last day of last year’s NCAAs on his 13th swim.
Wonder if the new splitting is actually progress and a sign to come for that last 50 getting better. He could maybe win it if Shebat is a little off. I could also see a few others… Gonna be a real good race I reckon.
In my opinion, if he can develop from having the fastest 3rd 50 to having the fastest back 100 in the race, Mulcare will be the one that’s hard to beat. Much easier said than done, but we will see I guess.
Who’s this Patrick Mulcare kid? Never heard of him.
He was 3rd last year at NCAAs. He took a big time drop and rose to the top. He was 1.05 seconds behind Cal’s Ryan Murphy, who you may have heard of.
He’s my amazing son and you haven’t seen the last of him. He’s his mothers son.