Ross Dant Swims 16:27 1650 Backstroke (Video)

Ross Dant (Hickory Foundation YMCA Seahorse Swim Team), 2018 Junior Pan Pacs distance champion and future NC State Wolfpack swimmer, decided to swim a 1650 at the GCY Winter YMCA  this past weekend. Dant decided to buck the norm, however, and opted to dive in and swim the race backstroke. Dant is typically seen as a distance freestyler, but he also has stellar backstroke times to boot. For instance, his personal best in the 200 back (SCY) is 1:44.54.

That being said, Dant clocked a 16:27.46, winning the race by about 7 seconds. He negative split the race, of course with the halfway point being the 825, it’s impossible for us to know exactly what his 1st and 2nd half splits were. However, Dant was 8:00.55 at the 800 mark, and 15:59.29 at the 1600 mark, making a 8:00.55/7:58.74 1600. He was holding low-to-mid 30s for 50 splits in the first half of the race, then he moved to high 29s and eventually mid-29s in the back half of the race.

Dant’s father provided SwimSwam with a short video showing his race, mostly just the start+first length and the last lap. Note that he starts the race off the blocks, as per the rules, any stroke may be swum in a freestyle race, however, the start must be a forward start. In short, while you can swim any stroke in a freestyle race, a backstroke start is not permitted.

Dant’s swim comes on the heels of what seems to be a growing trend of fast backstrokers and/or distance swimmers swimming longer freestyle events backstroke. You can find our recent post on YMCA Nats champ Josh Cohen swimming the 500 backstroke here, and then-high-school swimmer Kylee Alons swimming the 500 backstroke here.