Penn’s Matt Fallon Swims Fastest-Ever 200 Breast by a Freshman with a 1:49.03

2022 NCAA DIVISION I MEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

In an incredibly fast prelims’s session, University of Pennsylvania’s Matt Fallon swam the fastest-ever time by a freshman with a 1:49.03 to lead the 200 breast prelims.

Fallon, who put up some great swims at last summer’s Olympic Trials, has continued to ride that momentum into his freshman season with the Quakers. He became the 2nd-fastest freshman ever in the event with times of 1:50.53 and then 1:49.71 at the midseason Zippy Invite, and he knocked another chunk off of his best time this morning.

Compared to some of the other swimmers in the field, Fallon took it relatively easy on the front half, going out in 53.80, but he closed with splits of 27.13 and 28.10. That’s pretty standard modus operandi for Fallon, who memorably employed a similar approach at Trials.

Today’s swim moves Fallon past former Cal swimmer Josh Prenot to become the 6th-fastest performer ever in the event.

Top All-Time Performers 200 Breast

  1. Will Licon (Texas) – 1:47.91
  2. Reece Whitley (Cal) – 1:48.53
  3. Kevin Cordes (Arizona) – 1:48.66
  4. Andrew Seliskar (Cal) – 1:48.70
  5. Max McHugh (Minnesota) – 1:49.02
  6. Matt Fallon (Penn) – 1:49.03
  7. Cody Miller (Sandpipers) – 1:49.31
  8. Josh Prenot (Cal) – 1:49.38
  9. Ian Finnerty (Indiana) – 1:49.90
  10. Leon Marchand (ASU) – 1:50.38

While Fallon’s time this morning was well over a second faster than anyone else’s, he’ll still have his work cut out for him tonight. He’ll face a field that includes three of the other top ten fastest men ever, including Reece Whitley, who’s the 2nd-fastest man ever, defending champion Max McHugh, and 200 IM champion Leon Marchand, among others.

In This Story

4
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

4 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
MTK
2 years ago

With what we’ve seen Chupkov do LC (1:02-1:04) and Fallon do at trials in prelims/semis and this AM in SCY (53-55) seems like aiming for a pretty even-split 200br is going to be the way to faster times. Breaststroke is such a hard stroke that trying to fly-and-die to the 100 makes you pay for it very badly in the 2nd half, even more than other strokes. When someone eventually goes 2:05.5 LC, I’m thinking it will be via 1:01.5-1:04.0, not 59.5-1:06.0.

Last edited 2 years ago by MTK
NornIron Swim
Reply to  MTK
2 years ago

If you think back to Athens ’04 Dani Gyurta started this more even 200 brst pacing. 100% believe it’s the best way.

John25
2 years ago

guy is absolutely deadly with his odd looking stroke. rest of the field can have fun eating his wake on that second 100 later.

anonymous
Reply to  John25
2 years ago

He hits every turn perfectly and also the finish.

About Robert Gibbs