SwimSwam Pulse is a recurring feature tracking and analyzing the results of our periodic A3 Performance Polls. You can cast your vote in our newest poll on the SwimSwam homepage, about halfway down the page on the right side.
Our most recent polls asked SwimSwam readers what the biggest surprises of the Women’s NCAA Championships were:
Question: What was the biggest surprise of the first two days at NCAAs?
RESULTS
- Cox wins 500 title decisively, Sims misses final – 57.6%
- Stanford dominates 800 free relay – 32.6%
- Huske tops Walsh in 200 IM final – 9.8%
Question: What was the biggest surprise of the second half of Women’s NCAAs?
RESULTS
- Grimes 4th in 400 IM, 13th in mile – 29.6%
- Stanford tops Texas for 2nd overall – 23.5%
- Bricker wins big in 400 IM – 18.4%
- Gretchen hits 46.9 100 fly – 18.0%
- Sims rebounds, gives Curzan real battle in backstrokes – 6.1%
- A. Walsh wins 100 breast by 0.91 – 3.7%
- Other – 0.7%
A lot of the 2025 Women’s NCAA Championships went as expected. Virginia dominated the team race en route to their fifth straight title, Gretchen Walsh swept her individual events with multiple record performances, and some other pre-race favorites such as Claire Curzan (200 back) and Emma Sticklen (200 fly) won titles in record fashion.
However, there were still plenty of surprises throughout the meet, and we polled SwimSwam readers on what the biggest ones were, first at the halfway point of the meet and then again once the competition had concluded.
Through the first two nights of racing, which only includes three of the 13 individual swimming events, the biggest surprise was clearly what happened in the 500 freestyle.
Slated to be an exciting three-way battle between defending champion Bella Sims, top seed Jillian Cox and the third-fastest swimmer of all-time Katie Grimes, it ended up being a rather decisive victory for Cox, with Grimes a distant 4th and Sims out of the final entirely after clocking 4:38.92 in the prelims to finish 17th.
Coming into the meet, Cox led the national rankings after hitting a personal best of 4:30.68 at the midseason Texas Hall of Fame Invite, Sims had been 4:31.06 in November, and Grimes went 4:32.69 in February. Sims and Grimes also own best times in the 4:28 range, so there was expectation for the three of them to be fighting it out, with at least one going under 4:30.
As it turned out, Cox won in 4:31.58, with Stanford’s Aurora Roghair (4:33.90) and Indiana’s Anna Peplowski (4:34.12) taking 2nd and 3rd and Grimes placing 4th in 4:34.25.
That result earned 57.6% of votes as the most surprising outcome of the first two days, followed by the 800 free relay, where Stanford dominated pre-race favorite Virginia, winning the title by more than four seconds in 6:46.98.
In the second half of the meet, readers selected Grimes’ performances in the 400 IM and 1650 free as the most surprising outcome.
Grimes was a big favorite to win the 400 IM, and although she was an underdog to Cox in the mile after her only swim in the event since joining Virginia in January was a 15:53 in February, which placed her outside the top eight on the psych sheets and thus not in the fastest seeded heat at NCAAs, she was still expected to put up a time that would be competitive in the top three.
Grimes ended up placing 4th in the 400 IM, more than four seconds slower than what she had gone in December (3:57.07) in 4:01.10, and in the 1650 free, she was 13th in 15:56.31, 30 seconds off her best time.
Grimes’ results picked up 29.6% of votes, and the other option earning more than 20% was Stanford topping Texas for the runner-up spot in the team standings.
The Longhorns had finished 2nd to Virginia for three straight seasons from 2022 to 2024, and in psych sheet scoring, Texas was projected to outscore the Cardinal by 57.5 points, not including diving where they also have a big advantage.
However, Stanford outscored their psych sheet projection by 82 points, while Texas finished 54.5 points lower than they were seeded to, resulting in the Cardinal placing 2nd with 417 points compared to Texas’ 354.
Two options earned 18% of votes, one being Caroline Bricker winning the 400 IM decisively and the other being Gretchen Walsh going under the 47-second barrier in the 100 fly.
Bricker’s win was such a surprise given the field featured both Grimes and Emma Weyant, who both stood on the Olympic podium in the 400 IM last summer.
The fact that Walsh going a mind-boggling 46.97 in the 100 fly only ranked fourth in the poll just tells us how good she’s been for an extended period of time. She is now the fastest swimmer in history by nearly a second and a half, but these types of performances have almost become expected from Walsh, who has established herself as arguably the greatest college swimmer in history.
Below, vote in our new A3 Performance Poll, which asks: What is the next barrier that will go down in men’s NCAA swimming?
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ABOUT A3 PERFORMANCE
The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner.
I’m so sick of seeing these sandpipers not do well in college and now I’m scared that Weinstein is gonna regress after she leaves for cal
Kharun is swimming insane right now but yeah it sucks, maybe Katie Grimes will pop off at Singapore with an American Record
The biggest individual disappointment was Katie Grimes based on the hype. Nonetheless, the University of Virginia still won the NCAA DI title.
Grimes doesn’t commit to the front. That’s been the biggest surprise since Tokyo 2021, where it looked like she’d become a second tier Ledecky.
Instead she’s content to sit way back in distance freestyle. It means her results are all over the place. It’s been that way for years. I don’t know how anybody can be overly surprised at 13th. She’s not banking early time. Sometimes the rallies happen and sometimes nothing happens.
400 individual medley is another matter. A better test for Grimes will be next year when she’s been in the program for a full year and they need her to maximize.
How do you know this?
Are you kidding me? She’s a 2x Olympian at only 18 – you call that “sitting way back?” Also, she has only been at UVA for 2 months, so let’s give her grace. Scoring points as a freshman at NCAAs is still an accomplishment.
😭😭 I was hoping we’d get the first championships with three 3x individual winners
Based on the psych sheets, the University of Texas women’s swimming program finished 88 points below its seeded projections.
You’re a broken record. It’s weird that you say that so gleefully.