2025 U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, June 3 – Saturday, June 7, 2025
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- Indiana University Natatorium
- LCM (50 meters)
- World Championship Selection Criteria
- SwimSwam Preview Index
- Meet Central
- Psych Sheets (Updated 6/02)
- Live Results
- How To Watch (USA Swimming Network)
- Prelims Live Recap: Day 1
- Finals Live Recap: Day 1
Men’s 100 Freestyle — Final
- World Record: 46.40 — Pan Zhanle, China (2024)
- American Record: 46.96 — Caeleb Dressel (2019)
- U.S. Open record: 46.99 – Jack Alexy, United States (2025)
- 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials Champion: Chris Guiliano — 47.38
- World Aquatics ‘A’ Cut: 48.34
Top 8:
- Jack Alexy (CAL) – 47.17
- Patrick Sammon (SUN) – 47.47
- Chris Guiliano (TXLA) – 47.49
- Destin Lasco (CAL) – 47.58
- Jonny Kulow (SUN) – 47.82
- Shaine Casas (TXLA) – 47.92
- Henry McFadden (JW) – 47.97
- Grant House (SUN) – 48.01
The 100 freestyle final tonight was absolutely breathtakingly quick. For a second year in a row a 47.5 was not enough for an individual spot, whilst there are two men who broke 48 who will be left at home (Brooks Curry from the ‘B’ was the other).
The top four will be guaranteed a spot, whilst fifth and sixth will need to wait to see how the team shapes up elsewhere.
What does all this mean for Team USA’s 4×100 free relay this summer?
The Past Is History, the Future Is a Mystery?
Last year’s Olympic Trials featured an historic 100 freestyle final. Not only did the top four swimmers all break 48 seconds, a first, but all of the top six did. Their Trials times add-up of 3:10.16 would have been quick enough to win Olympic gold.
The US did just that in Paris in a time of 3:09.28, the sixth-fastest time in history, but the drop of 0.88 seconds was the smallest in recent history for the US
Here was what the gaps look like between the add-up from the top four at Nationals and the relay times swum later that summer since 2000.
The last two years have seen much smaller gaps than the previous decade. There may not be a trend there however – the 2023 team was a weak one, missing a true star (Jack Alexy only split 47.6 – his breakout later in the week was truly remarkable), and as mentioned the trials add-up in 2024 was quick enough to be a gold-medal contender already.
We love to predict how relays will perform before a major summer meet. There are almost no other real opportunities for a top-tier long course relay team to compete, so there’s limited data to go off.
Based on the U.S. Nationals results we’ve built a model to predict the final time for the American 4×100 free relay this summer. To calculate this we’ve considered the National Championship results (top four), previous history of the drops from Nationals to the relay in the summer, and the raw times themselves.
The past four years look something like this:
| Year | Trials Add-up | Predicted Time | Range (90% confidence band*) | Range (50% confidence band) | Actual Relay Time |
| 2021 | 3:11.56 | 3:09.59 | 3:09.00 – 3:10.14 | 3:09.33 – 3:09.75 | 3:08.97 |
| 2022 | 3:12.26 | 3:10.05 | 3:09.53 – 3:10.48 | 3:09.71- 3:10.09 | 3:09.34 |
| 2023 | 3:11.90 | 3:09.82 | 3:09.28 – 3:10.29 | 3:09.51 – 3:09.89 | 3:10.81 |
| 2024 | 3:10.16 | 3:08.52 | 3:07.64 – 3:09.29 | 3:08.66 – 3:09.39 | 3:09.28 |
*This defines the upper and lower limits of a range in which we would be 90% sure that the result would fall – if this was raced 100 times, in 90 of those we’d expect a time in this range.
First things first, the model does have some limitations. It is only intended as a ballpark figure and the 90% and 50% confidence bands are too confident, especially for the last few years where the actual drops have ranged anywhere from 0.88 seconds to 2.92 seconds.
Overall though, we’re not looking for this to give us an absolute relay time to hold ourselves to for the summer – just a range which we (or you) can debate. Without further ado, here are all the numbers from this year’s trials you need to worry about.
The Numbers
| Top 4 | |
| 1 | Jack Alexy – 47.17 |
| 2 | Patrick Sammon – 47.47 |
| 3 | Chris Guiliano – 47.49 |
| 4 | Destin Lasco – 47.58 |
| Total | 3:09.71 |
| Predicted time | 3:08.86 |
| Range (90% confidence band) | 3:07.71 – 3:09.61 |
| Range (50% confidence band) | 3:08.57 – 3:09.31 |
Fastest three flat-start times of the top-six:
| Place | Swimmer | #1 | #2 | #3 |
| 1 | Jack Alexy | 46.99 | 47.08 | 47.17 |
| 2 | Patrick Sammon | 47.47 | 47.78 | 48.18 |
| 3 | Chris Guiliano | 47.25 | 47.38 | 47.49 |
| 4 | Destin Lasco | 47.58 | 47.82 | 47.90 |
| 5 | Jonny Kulow | 47.82 | 47.82 | 48.35 |
| 6 | Shaine Casas | 47.92 | 48.23 | 48.24 |
Fastest three senior international relay splits of the top six:
| Place | Swimmer | #1 | #2 | #3 |
| 1 | Jack Alexy | 47.00 | 47.48 | 47.56 |
| 2 | Patrick Sammon | 48.18 | – | – |
| 3 | Chris Guiliano | 47.33 | 47.77 | 48.18 |
| 4 | Destin Lasco | 47.95 | – | – |
| 5 | Jonny Kulow | 47.32 | 47.39 | 47.44 |
| 6 | Shaine Casas | 48.47 | – | – |
Fastest flat-start add-up:
| Place | Swimmer | Time |
| 1 | Jack Alexy | 46.99 |
| 2 | Chris Guiliano | 47.25 |
| 3 | Patrick Sammon | 47.47 |
| 4 | Destin Lasco | 47.58 |
| Add-up | 3:09.29 |
Fastest flat start + relay split add-up:
| Place | Swimmer | Time |
| 1 | Jack Alexy | 46.99 |
| 2 | Chris Guiliano | 47.25 (FS) |
| 3 | Jonny Kulow | 47.32 |
| 4 | Patrick Sammon | 47.47 (FS) |
| Total | Add-up | 3:09.03 |
Jonny Kulow could be a weapon on this relay after three sub-47.5 splits back in 2023 at the Pan-American games. There is not a great deal of international relay experience from these six- Alexy and Guiliano are the only two to have swum in a worlds final – but based on raw speed alone they make a formidable team
As a final look ahead, here are the U.S. Nationals/Trials to summer relay drops since 2000 based on location. The circles get darker as the year gets later, and any hollow circles indicate a negative drop – that is, an increase.
Sammon/Casas/Kulow/Lasco will be interesting to follow. Big opportunity for them.
WR set by Phelps, Weber-Gale,Jones & Lezak at 3:08.24 in Beijing on August 11, 2008, which could be converted to a 47.06 mean leg split for a comparative purpose, is too tough to be out-touched at moment, unless one leg might swim a Panzhanle-esque split or on-par-with-Lezak one anyway.
gonna average like 47.2 i do think this is gonna be one of the fastest in the decade
Come on. 3:07:71. LFG.
So in the historical view, in 3 of the 4 years the actual time was outside of the 90th percentile, and the 4th was 1/100th within? I’ll take the dog all day long.
I’m not a stats guy, but that seems odd. Perhaps the number of observations are so small that real statistical analysis isn’t appropriate?
I’m guessing the model was built on data going back to at least 2000 if not earlier. They presented data for other stats back to then for other categories just not for the prediction set. Could be wrong, but based on other stat articles they do tend to know what they are doing with sample sizes.
You are correct that it is not a super accurate model. The number of data points being too small is one aspect of that, but also the model is overly simplistic. I’ve heavily bootstrapped the data to try to deal with the first point by generating a confidence range, but it’s not a perfect substitute for just having more data.
On the second point, the model purely looks at the add-up and relay times; not the swimmers that make up each, their personal best tendency to drop on relays or the race around them. As such there’s a lot of complexity not captured, and as well as that it’s built on a simple exponential assumption – one that makes… Read more »
Who will they pick is the question. Is Johnny Kulow capable of something greater?
I bet they’ll use him in the prelims and he’ll light it up, he’s a huge relay swimmer
Looking forward to seeing it!
Kulow’s been ASU’s “go to” relay anchor since his freshman year.
Anchored ASU 2025 400 SCY Medley relay at :39.93, all-time behind only the fellow in the next lane, Tennessee’s Jordan Crooks, who was :39.36. Dressell broke 40 individually but never on a relay.
And on LCM 100 relay splits, at the Pan Ams he assembled a list of :47.32, :47.39 and :47.44 in meet where he swam his flat start PB at :48.38. Pretty dang consistent.
Kulow is a dependable relay monster. Also a SCY 50 split PB of :17.78.
Sammon does not have as large a sample size but when given a leg was also very dependable, includng occasional flashes (like tonight). :40.34 on 2nd leg of… Read more »
Guiliano split 47.3 at Paris
So he did, thanks