2018 LOS ANGELES INVITE
- USC Uytengsu Aquatic Center, Los Angeles, CA
- July 12th-15th
- Prelims at 8:30 a.m., finals at 5 p.m.
- Psych sheet
- Results on Meet Mobile: “2018 CA Los Angeles Invite (1)”
2012 Olympic champion Rūta Meilutytė has been bouncing between coaches and traveling the world for the past year or so.
After her long-time coach at Plymouth Leander in Great Britain, Jon Rudd, moved on to take Irish Swimming’s performance director role, Meilutyte moved back to Lithuania in 2017 to train under the guidance of Paulius Andrijauskas, a former Olympic butterfly swimmer and the vice-president of Lithuanian Swimming Federation.
That return was cut short, however, when the then-20-year-old traveled to Australia to take up some temporary training. She then swam with David Marsh and Team Elite in San Diego for a stint in early 2018, while filming her movie. In March, she announced she would be heading to USC to train under Dave Salo.
After swimming her first final of the 2018 Los Angeles Invite Friday (the 100 free, in which she went 56.24), Meilutytė told SwimSwam that she plans to remain with Salo until (at least) Tokyo 2020, and is enjoying her training so far.
He is good for breaststroke.
1:06 breast incoming
The champ. Hope things are on the up for her
She actually did really well in Budapest last year, a sign of return. She swam a 1:05.06 in SF!! ended up 4th though, yet that swim didn’t get much recognition. She swam 3 1:05s in at one meet–she’s only done that twice before, in Barcelona (2×1:04) and in London! For comparison in Rio she was 1:07.32, for 7th, in Kazan she was 1:06.36 for 2nd, in 2014 she had the world #1 time, but only a 1:05.39, 2013 in Barcelona was her peak year, and in London, she won only with a 1:05.47. Last year she swam her best swim not in Barcelona!! Pretty hopeful for her to do well.