Thomas Heilman Takes Half-a-Second Off Michael Andrew’s 13-14 Record in 100 Fly

SPEEDO WINTER JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIPS – EAST

After melting the 13-14 National Age Group Record books last week, mostly in long course, 14-year old Thomas Heilman broke his first record of the Speedo Winter Junior Championships – East meet on Friday morning.

Heilman swam 46.42 in the 100 yard fly, which knocked half-a-second off the old record of 46.95 that was set by one of the sport’s legendary age group swimmers, Michael Andrew.

Along with two short course records set in a one-session meet appearance in North Carolina last Sunday, after the US Open, he now has three National Age Group Records in yards in the 13-14 age group. He holds 14 National Age Group Records across all courses and age groups.

Splits Comparison in Yards:

Thomas Heilman Michael Andrew
New NAG Record Old NAG Record Previous PB
50y 21.59 21.58 22.21
100y 24.83 25.37 25.14
Total Time 46.42 46.95 47.35

Much like last week, when Heilman broke Andrew’s 100 fly record in long course, the Cavalier Aquatics product showed improvement in both the front-end and the back-end of his race to get the new record. He took his swim out about as fast as Andrew did in 2014, but closed half-a-second faster to make the gap on the record. Interestingly, Andrew’s long course record was a way different pacing pattern, showing a lot more back-half ‘patience’ in the race than his short course swim did.

At the time, Andrew’s swim was also faster than the 15-16 record. The swim was done on his 15th birthday, but because swimmers’ ages are recorded on the first day of the meet, he was still chasing 13-14 records at the time.

On Thursday evening, Heilman swam 19.83 to win the 50 yard free, which improves his personal best and ranks him #2 all-time in the 13-14 age group. He still has the 200 free left to swim on Friday morning – an event where he crushed the National Age Group Record in long course last weekend.

 

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Anonymous
2 years ago

Buh bye race pace “science” that doesn’t believe peer reviewed science.

M D E
Reply to  Anonymous
2 years ago

Question: Why do you individuals that are locked in on MA hate make every article even tangentially related to him a debate about him?

Andrew is a successful open swimmer at a world class level, a quick search will show he is #3 all time 100 Brst, #6 all time 200 IM, #16 all time 100 FL, #23 all time 50 FS. Any swimmer (including ones setting insane NAG records at 14) would be doing very well to have a career as good as Michael Andrew has had to this point.

Jalen Stimes
2 years ago

What was even crazier was that MA’s og record was faster than the 15-16 NAG record at the time!! 🤯🤯🤯 Remember the name, we could see an Olympian by 2028.

M D E
Reply to  Jalen Stimes
2 years ago

By 2028? He will be 17 in 2024, would you really be that surprised if we saw him on a relay or something at 2024?

Obviously that’s a tough progression and would be a massive accomplishment, but so is swimming that fast at any point.

Swimm
2 years ago

The Andrew record was essentially noteworthy since it was a 13-14 NAG that was faster than the 15-16 NAG at that time. Crazy how much it was crushed today

Guy
2 years ago

This dude can almost qualify for ncaas 🤯

The condors were robbed
2 years ago

Andrew records were a fluke

PVSFree
Reply to  The condors were robbed
2 years ago

I mean, c’mon, the guy broke the records. Clock doesn’t lie

Taa
Reply to  The condors were robbed
2 years ago

Yeah he hasn’t done anything since he was 14

John
Reply to  Taa
2 years ago

TIL the olympics are nothing

Eagleswim
Reply to  The condors were robbed
2 years ago

That’s a lot of flukes…

M D E
Reply to  The condors were robbed
2 years ago

Michael Andrew is top 3 all time in an individual event. He is a successful, world class open swimmer whether you like it or not. His status as that is undeniable at this point.

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Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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