Swims You Might Have Missed on Day 2 of the 2025 Ft. Lauderdale Pro Swim Series

2025 Pro Swim Series – Fort Lauderdale

• Wednesday, April 30 – Saturday, May 3, 2025
• Fort Lauderdale, Florida
• Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center
• LCM (50 meters)
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results
• Live Recaps
  • Prelims: Day 2
  • Finals: Day 1 | Day 2

Katie Ledecky was the headline act once again tonight, and in the furore of seeing her at her peak you’d be forgiven for missing some other excellent swims tonight. Here’s a few that may not catch the eye at first.

DAY 2 – SWIMS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

Quintin McCarty dropped one of the fastest 50-yard backstroke of all time with a 20.24 at NCAAs, and seems to have keyed in on this event in long course. He scratched out of the 100 free ‘B’ final tonight in favour of the 50 back and it more than paid off as he took second, just four-hundredths behind Shaine Casas.

McCarty had already dropped half a second off his best time from 2023 this morning, breaking 25 seconds for the first time, and sliced off another 0.48 tonight to go 24.45. That should give him a centre lane at World Trials if he can repeat the trick there, and another tenth or two could see him challenge to make the top-two.

Taylor Ruck won the ‘B’ final of the women’s 50 backstroke in 28.36, only 5-hundredths off her best time from 2019. Her 100 PB of 58.55 dates from the same year, which could indicate that she’s focusing in on backstroke again in 2025. She isn’t entered tomorrow in the 200 back or 200 free, but is down to swim the 100 backstroke on Saturday.

Finn Kemp, a freshman from Arizona State who swims for Luxembourg internationally, dropped three-quarters of a second off his best time in the 100 breaststroke. Having gone 1:02.40 at the Sacramento PSS just 4 weeks ago, he clipped that with a 1:02.31 this morning before blowing it away in a time of 1:01.66 this evening. That swim in California sliced just over a tenth off the 1:02.54 he went at last summer’s European Juniors, he could be a strong pickup for any team in need of a breaststroker after entering the transfer portal in March.

With only a quarter of the men’s 100 breaststroke ‘A’ final from the US, it was not the swimmer you would have expected out of those two who led the charge. Campbell McKean hacked nearly a full second off his prelims time of 1:01.38 in a time of 1:00.40, slicing six-tenths off his best time from last summer in the process. That placed him third tonight,  as he was one of only three swimmers to come home under 32 seconds – doing so by the skin of his teeth in 31.99.

Claire Weinstein took third in the 400 freestyle in 4:01.28 to jump to the #3 US woman all-time, but had already raced this evening in the 100 free before doing so. She swam a best time there as well, slicing half a second off her best to take second in 54.43, with splits of 26.82-27.61 indicative of a swimmer who knows where their strengths are. She now ranks 16th in the 17-18 age group in this event.

Whilst Eleanor Sun just missed out on the ‘A’ final in the 200 fly as she finished ninth this morning, the Princeton All-American took just over a second off her previous best time to go 2:11.73, and almost matched that exactly in the final with a time of 2:11.80. That was her first PB in the event since 2023, and follows on from a 1.23 second drop in the yards version of the event this season. Having been strongest in IM so far this year, she may be in line to drop time from her 2022 bests in the 200/400 medleys on Day 3 and 4.

Ryan Branon started the day with a best time in the 200 fly of 1:58.40, and ended it over a second and a half quicker and a PSS ‘A’ finalist. After going 1:57.86 this morning to claim lane two, he dropped nearly a second off his second 100 this evening to take fourth in 1:56.81, three-tenths off the WA ‘A’ cut. He nearly ran down third-place-finisher Trenton Julian, with only Martin Espernberger having a faster final 50 than the Texas sophomore.

Carson Foster took eighth in the 100 free, but his 49.22 stands as a new personal best for the Texas Longhorn. He shaved 0.13 off the time he swam last January, although split 47.8 and 48.1 in Doha just a month later. With a strong 1:55.84 in the 200 fly later in the session, which made this his first double since doing the 200 fly-200 IM double Worlds 2023,  Foster is looking in good form for Trials.

Another swimmer who will be looking ahead to trials, real-life Mr Worldwide Santo Condorelli, did not swim in finals this morning but did take out his 100 in prelims this morning for a 50 time, surging to touch in 22.03 before cruising home. That’s just off the 21.95 he swam this time last year (in an actual 50 free race), but he may be zeroed in on this event rather than the 100 freestyle. It took a time of 21.69 to make the team last year in the 50, just over a tenth under his PB of 21.83 from 2016.