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
Women’s 100 Freestyle — Final
- World Record: 51.71 — Sarah Sjöström, Sweden (2017)
- American Record: 52.04 — Simone Manuel (2019)
- U.S. Open Record: 52.54 — Simone Manuel, United States (2018)
- 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials Champion: Kate Douglass — 52.56
- World Aquatics ‘A’ Cut: 54.25
- Torri Huske (AAC) – 52.43
- Gretchen Walsh (NYAC) – 52.78
- Simone Manuel (TXLA) – 52.83
- Kate Douglass (NYAX – 53.16
- Erin Gemmel (TXLA) – 53.51
- Anna Moesch (GSCY) – 53.54
- Maxine Parker (CA-Y) – 53.56
- Claire Weinstein (SAND) – 53.72
The 100 freestyle final tonight saw Torri Huske set a new US Open record, taking that crown from fourth-place finisher Kate Douglass. Gretchen Walsh finished second after placing third in 2023 and 2024, and Simone Manuel was under 53 seconds for the first time since Gwangju back in 2019.
All in all, the relay is shaping up nicely. Erin Gemmell and Anna Moesch add an injection of youth after some big drops today.
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 relays this summer?
The Past Is History, the Future Is a Mystery?
After finishing third in 2021 and 2022, the US has taken silver at the last two major meets, including a 3:30.20 Americas record in Paris last year. The Add-up of the top four this year is even faster than it was in 2024, so they could scare the 3:30 barrier in Singapore.
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 drop in Tokyo, despite finishing third there, was the biggest of the past four years. The difference was tiny in 2023, but stretched back out to 1.73 seconds at the Olympics last year.
We all 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 | 3:34.59 | 3:33.03 | 3:32.71 – 3:33.32 | 3:32.90 – 3:33.15 | 3:32.81 |
| 2022 | 3:34.17 | 3:32.70 | 3:32.37 – 3:13.02 | 3:32.57 – 3:32.83 | 3:32.58 |
| 2023 | 3:32.10 | 3:31.18 | 3:30.68 – 3:31.61 | 3:30.99 – 3:31.39 | 3:31.93 |
| 2024 | 3:31.87 | 3:31.02 | 3:30.50 – 3:31.45 | 3:30.82 – 3:31.23 | 3:30.20 |
*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.
Overall, 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 | Torri Huske – 52.43 |
| 2 | Gretchen Walsh – 52.78 |
| 3 | Simone Manuel – 52.83 |
| 4 | Kate Douglass – 53.16 |
| Total | 3:31.20 |
| Predicted time | 3:30.56 |
| Range (90% confidence band) | 3:29.99 – 3:30.96 |
| Range (50% confidence band) | 3:30.38 – 3:30.78 |
Fastest three flat-start times of the top-six
| Place | Swimmer | #1 | #2 | #3 |
| 1 | Torri Huske | 52.29 | 52.43 | 52.90 |
| 2 | Gretchen Walsh | 52.78 | 52.90 | 52.99 |
| 3 | Simone Manuel | 52.04 | 52.27 | 52.54 |
| 4 | Kate Douglass | 52.56 | 52.57 | 52.81 |
| 5 | Erin Gemmell | 53.51 | 53.61 | 54.13 |
| 6 | Anna Moesch | 53.54 | 53.69 | 54.09 |
Fastest three senior international relay spits of the top six
| Place | Swimmer | #1 | #2 | #3 |
| 1 | Torri Huske | 51.88 | 52.08 | 52.42 |
| 2 | Gretchen Walsh | 52.55 | – | – |
| 3 | Simone Manuel | 51.86 | 51.92 | 52.00 |
| 4 | Kate Douglass | 51.79 | 52.28 | 52.41 |
| 5 | Erin Gemmell | – | – | – |
| 6 | Anna Moesch | – | – | – |
Fastest flat-start add-up:
| Place | Swimmer | Time |
| 1 | Torri Huske | 52.29 |
| 2 | Gretchen Walsh | 52.78 |
| 3 | Simone Manuel | 52.04 |
| 4 | Kate Douglass | 52.56 |
| Total | 3:29.67 |
Fastest flat start + relay split add-up
| Place | Swimmer | Time |
| 1 | Simone Manuel | 52.04 |
| 2 | Gretchen Walsh | 52.55 |
| 3 | Torri Huske | 51.88 |
| 4 | Kate Douglass | 51.79 |
| Total | 3:28.26 |
Anna Moesch will be on her first international team, while Erin Gemmell has only made the team in the 200 free before. However, the top four are seasoned veterans now, each with at least two major international competitions under their belt, and if everything clicks, could give Australia a battle in Singapore.
As a final look ahead, here are the U.S. Nationals/Trials to summer relay drops since 2000. The circles get darker as the year gets later, and any hollow circles indicate a negative drop – that is, an increase.
With decent changeovers they should get the AR and maybe be just under 3.30. Can’t predict what Australia will do since we don’t know their exact squad.
Up vote if you think these same 4 will be the relay in the finals in LA, down vote if you think otherwise…
At least one younger swimmer will replace one of them
Post Olympic years are ‘weird’… not a great indication of 3 years time.
Erisman will be top 4 by LA.
Despite everything she’s achieved I think Huske is so underrated. She’s a rockstar.
Only swimmer to get 4 golds in Paris, and yet, agreed, still somehow underrated.
I think the 100 fly and 200 IM semis are during the same session as the final for this relay so 3 of the 4 finals swimmers might be pulling a double. They can all handle a double on day one just fine, but with it already being an uphill battle to dethrone Australia, I’m worried it could be what makes the difference. They also really need to hope Moesch doesn’t get roster capped out because it would be helpful to have options to rest KD in the morning session of this relay if possible. I think Weinstein will have the 400FR that day so maybe something like:
Morning: Manuel-Gemmell-Moesch-Berkoff/Curzan?
Night: Huske-Walsh-Douglass-Manuel
USA will win in Singapore.
Huske has 52.42 ..ahead of 52.60
Let’s face the truth, Simone Manuel is not turning back the clock to 2019.
And even if she doesn’t…so? She’s obviously still competitive and an asset to the team. She got screwed over by COVID when she was at her peak, so I’m glad (and so is team USA) that she’s still working hard.
You absolutely have the worst takes and opinions in all Swimswam galleries, and no redeeming quality.
Andrew and realCrocker at least can be funny at times.
The tone of relay names guy is off and certainly based on her recent results, Simone Manuel is an important contributor, but a legitimate criticism of this analysis is that it uses best times as if all best times are equal.
It might be a legitimate criticism to question the relevance of even a two-year old time from Douglass. It is definitely fair to question an add up of times of Manuel from six years ago or more when her best times in recent years haven’t been below 53 until yesterday.
In Singapore, USA will beat AUS and won w4x100 free for the first time since 2017.
we desperately need betting markets bc i called this many months ago
Wasnt hard to see it coming – with all the Australian retirements, breaks, injuries etc….