Ryan Lochte‘s first race of the 2017-2018 season didn’t come at Winter Nationals, nor Austin, nor even this weekend’s TYR Pro Swim Series meet in Atlanta – only a 5 hour drive from his training base in Gainesville.
Instead, Lochte made his official return to competition at the Florida Area 1 & 4 Championships hosted by the Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida. On Saturday, he swam a 4:21.79 in the 500 yard free. His best time in the event is a 4:13.23 done in 2007, which at the time put him among the best in the country, though the race hasn’t been part of his repertoire at championship meets since high school (he swam 4:25.5 as a senior in high school). Other than that one swim, 4:21s were his next-best times.
Lochte’s name didn’t appear in the heat sheets to begin with, so we don’t know for sure if he’ll be swimming other races this weekend.
After time spent training with Team Elite in Charlotte and the Trojan Swim Club in Los Angeles, Lochte is back training with Gregg Troy at the University of Florida, where he achieved most of his collegiate and professional success.
Lochte’s life has gone through a lot of changes over the last year. Besides his return to Troy and Gainesville, he and then-fiancee Kayla Reid welcomed their first child, Caden, on June 8th, and then in January they married at a courthouse in Gainesville.
Lochte getting back to his roots. I like it. BTW, I had to look it up — he did that 4:13 at a random club meet one year after he finished his NCAA career.
Very Good time age of 33. Good indication of long distance. Ryan is back and road to Tokyo 2020.
I’m gonna guess lochte is gonna go for the 200 free 100 back 200 back and 200 IM
What a great experience for those swimmers at this local LSC age group meet.
But what could Caeleb Dressel do? 😉 Could swim swam crowd fund time trials? Like creating deals where we pay Caeleb Dressel $500 to time trial a 500 yard free and he gets $1,000 if he goes under 4:15… it could have some novelty for a bit.
Or better maybe for more sadistic users… put a bounty on completing a certain workout.
For example offer $100 to the swimmer who completes 100×100 fly@100 seconds in return they provide content, generate page views…
Anyways I’d pay to watch Dressel do the 200 free at NCAA’s. Maybe I could make some “campaign contributions” to the Florida Gators swim program as part of a new special interest group, S.N.I.N.O.S (Swim… Read more »
HMMM…that’s actually a really interesting idea.
Yo dude i will so do 100×100 flys on 1:40 for $100
I wouldn’t for 1 dollar, even if I was Caeleb Dressel.
The NCAA would ban him
He’s a senior, he’s (we assume) going pro after NCAAs
Ban him from what? He’s done with NCAA in exactly 3 weeks whether he decided to go pro or not…
Yes. this. I’m in!
Lochte’s best events have been the IMs, 200 backstroke, and 200 free.
Chase K. has taken over the IMs, and Murphy and Pebley the 200 back. The 200 free is still relatively open.
1 fly ?
That’s a pretty tough one with Dressel basically a lock for the top spot. He’d have to get by Conger it looks like. Pretty sure 200 IM is his best shot, maybe a spot on the 4×200 as well.
*cough Dean Farris
I like this news.
The court house wedding is the best. Low cost, legal, and shows your spouse that you care enough to go before a judge to proclaim your life long commitment.?
Whenever people get married that is what they are doing. Why would a courthouse wedding be the best?
Jeah!