2025 World Junior Swimming Championships
- August 19-24, 2025
- Otopeni, Romania
- LCM (50 meters)
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GIRLS 100 FREESTYLE – Semifinals
- World Record: 51.71 – Sarah Sjostrom, SWE (2017)
- World Junior Record: 52.70 – Penny Oleksiak, CAN (2016)
Championship Record: 53.17 – Rylee Erisman, USA (2025)
Top 8 Qualifiers
- Rylee Erisman (USA) – 53.09
- Theodora Taylor (GBR) – 54.52
- Lily King (USA) – 54.68
- Mingyu Luo (CHN) – 54.93
- Kira Manokhina (NAB) – 54.99
- Alessandra Mao (ITA) – 54.99
- Zoe Pedersen (NZL) – 55.03
- Mizuki Hirai (JPN) – 55.04
With her morning performance, Erisman shattered her personal best, which had stood at 53.75. She also blew away the World Junior Championship Record, which Taylor Ruck set at 53.63 back at the 2017 World Junior Championships in Indianapolis. Moreover, Erisman obliterated the US National Age Group Record for 15-16 girls, which Claire Curzan held at 53.55. Her time tonight, of course, resets all of those records again.
For what it’s worth, Erisman’s time is also already under the US NAG for 17-18 girls, which Simone Manuel holds with a 53.25. Given that, Erisman is now the fastest American junior ever in this event. Canadian Penny Oleksiak is the only person who has been faster at age 16. Only Cate Campbell, Rikako Ikee, Mollie O’Callaghan, and Taylor Ruck have been faster at 17, while Sarah Sjostrom and Olivia Wunsch have been equal or better at 18.
Now, Erisman heads into tomorrow’s final just 0.39 seconds off the World Junior Record, which Oleksiak set in 2016 with a 52.70.
Erisman was out one one-hundredth slower than her prelims time tonight but closed eight one-hundredths quicker to drop under her previous best.
Splits Comparison:
| Split | Erisman – 2025 World Junior Champs Finals | Erisman – 2025 World Junior Champs Prelims |
| 50m | 25.80 | 25.79 |
| 100m | 27.29 | 27.38 |
| FINAL TIME | 53.09 | 53.17 |
She got off to a great start yesterday, helping the U.S. to a silver medal in the girls’ 4×200 free relay with a 1:56.69 anchor leg split, well under her flat-start best of 1:57.29.
Erisman has very limited international experience, but that doesn’t seem to be affecting her one bit based on her swims thus far. Her only other major travel meet was the Junior Pan Pacs in Canberra, Australia, last summer, where she swam her aforementioned 53.75 in the 100 free en route to gold. She was also silver in the 50 free and 10th in the 100 back, in addition to helping Team USA to gold in the 4×100 free relay, 4×200 free relay, 4×100 medley relay, and mixed 4×100 medley relay.
Erisman is set to tackle the final of this 100 free tomorrow, in addition to the 50 free where she is the equal top seed alongside teammate Annam Olasewere, and the 200 free where she sits 2nd on the entry sheet behind Peiqi Yang.
As a reminder, this meet also serves as a qualifier for next summer’s Pan Pacific Championships, and if Erisman can get under 53.51 in tomorrow’s final, she will have secured herself a spot on the team. Read more in detail about the selection procedures here.
So she needs sub 53:16 in the final (Kate Douglas’s 4th at Trials) to be a priority 1 selection?
Time would have been 6th at Worlds. Doing it in the moment is an entirely different animal (with 52s to your right and left)
Can’t wait for the collective AUS crash out when their 4×100 (and maybe 4×200) reign comes to an end sooner rather than later
You may be waiting a while. MOC is 21, Meg H 23, Shayna Jack 26, Liv Wunsch 19, Milla Jansen 18. I think all of them (maybe some doubt about Jack) have got improvements in their 100 PBs in them. As for the 4×200 – as long as Australia have Titmus and MOC bookending their team (as well as Lani, Castelluzo and other young swimmers), it’s very hard to see them losing that relay.
Aussies are washed. Nothing in the pipeline. A delicate fragile flower.
The 4×1 is definitely going to be a battle, but Australia’s 4×2 record is 2.5 seconds faster than the American record and literally all 4 legs are faster since it was set.
Next major LCM meet isn’t for two whole years.
If you’re getting excited because you think some people might get upset about something that may or may not happen in two years, you may need to get a job
I wonder if this is enough to rank her ahead of Audrey Derivaux in Swimswam’s high school rankings lol
a 46.6 is already more than enough
This. I saw that time today and thought about all the hullabaloo in the comment section when Audrey was ranked top of the recruiting class. Audrey is an incredible talent but recruiting classes are often all about relays, and Rylee will be a game changer or solidifier to the relays wherever she chooses.
If she goes under 52.78, will she get the individual spot?? That’d be crazy
It wouldn’t matter if she did – Pan-Pacs entries are not limited to 2 per country for prelims. Any qualifiers can swim any event. Only 2 from one country can make A final
Pan Pacs can have more than two entries per event for each country. It’s then the fastest two per nation that qualify for the A final.
Edit: Just saw swimgeek made the same point before me.
Watch out Gretchen, Torri, Kate, and Simone
Sub 53 watch?
World aquatics age is maybe what they are going by?
She turned 16 two months before Rio.