Long Course Time Trials
- February 7, 2021
- Jason Turcotte Competition Pool, Chamblee, Georgia
- Long Course Meters (50 meters)
- Results on Meet Mobile: “Long Course Time Trials”
After the conclusion of the short course Georgia High School State Championship meets over the weekend, a trio of Georgia’s best teams got together on Sunday for a long course time trial. The meet was designed to take advantage of the taper coming off the high school championships, the meet had 121 entrants.
Most of those entrants were high school aged swimmers, though a few others, notably Olympians Amanda Weir and Edgar Crespo, also raced.
Among those swimmers who took substantial advantage of the opportunity was SwimAtlanta 17-year old Sebastien Sergile. The high school junior swam 2:00.98 in the 200 meter fly, which gets under the US Olympic Trials Wave I cut and marks his first Olympic Trials standard.
Sergile’s previous best time was 2:01.82. The Wave I Olympic Trials standard is a 2:01.19, meaning that he’s now eligible to swim in the early-June wave of the US Olympic Trials. He would need to go 1:59.63 to qualify for Wave 2, which is the faster wave of USA Swimming’s new two-tiered qualifying system that is designed to reduce the number of athletes on deck at any time amid COVID-19 pandemic uncertainty.
The top 2 finishers in each event from the Wave 1 meet advance to the Wave 2 meet a week later.
Sergile is the #13-ranked swimmer in the high school class of 2022, though he hasn’t announced his future college plans yet. The breakout in long course follows several standout short course swims over the last year. That includes a 1:45.0 in the 200 yard fly in December that ranked him 10th all-time in the 15-16 age group in that event.
His new long course time ranks him just outside of the top 100 in USA Swimming history among 17-18s, though he has a while to climb that list as he’s just past his 17th birthday.
Sergile also swam 44.3 in the 100 yard free in December.
Earlier in the weekend, Sergile split 21.60 on the butterfly leg of Centennial High School’s winning 200 medley relay. He followed that with a 1:35.36 in the 200 free, which is just two-tenths shy of the State Record; and later a 4:23.30 in the 500 free. Those times are around three and four seconds faster, respectively, than his best pre-pandemic bests.
Sergile was one of three swimmers to go under an Olympic Trials Wave I standard at the event. In the girls’ 200 IM, SwimAtlanta’s GiGi Johnson swam 2:16.93, which bettered the Wave I standard of 2:17.39.
For Johnson, that took more than a second off her previous lifetime best of 2:18.01 that was done at the 2019 Summer Junior Championships. She swam the race at the US Open last November, but was only 2:18.49.
Johnson previously has a Wave I cut in the 200 breaststroke, thanks to a 2:30.69 also done at Summer Juniors in 2019. Like most participants, she swam just one race at the time trial meet, and opted to go after a Wave 1 cut in the 200 IM. That’s in spite of being just two-tenths of a second short of the Wave 2 cut in the 200 breaststroke. Based on the transitive property of swimming, it’s probable that she could have dropped those two tenths, given that in the same time period she dropped over a second in the 200 IM, but Atlanta-area swimmers aren’t devoid of long course racing opportunities, so she should still have more chances to clear the Wave 2 cut.
The other swimmer to clear the Olympic Trials standard was another SwimAtlanta racer: Jack Aikins. He won the 50 free in 22.95. That undercuts the senior and University of Virginia commit’s previous best of 23.25, and gives him a fourth Olympic Trials cut.
At the US Open in Huntsville, Alabama in November, he cleared the the 100 free Wave 1 standard with a 50.43 and Wave 2 standard in the 100 back with a 54.59. He also has a 200 back Wave 1 cut in 2:02.01.
Because he has a single Wave 2 cut, he must swim at the Wave 2 meet, and he is eligible to swim all four of those races at the Wave 2 meet (even the ones where he has only a Wave 1 standard).
Other Time Trial Highlights
- 16-year old Owen McDonald of the Dynamo Swim Club, an uncommitted high school junior, swam new lifetime bests of 1:54.56 in the 200 free and 56.22 in the 100 fly. Both swims clear the 2019 Summer Juniors cut. His previous long course best in the 200 free was just 1:59.3, while his previous long course best int he 100 fly was just 1:01.0.
- 17-year old Peyton Curry, an LSU commit and the younger sister of the defending SEC Champion in the 100 free Brooks Curry, swam a new best time in the 200 free. She posted a 2:05.42, which betters her old best of 2:06.20.
The joys of reaping the benefits of access to long course pools and support from teams to allow Time Trials! Congratulations!
I know in the case of Sergile that he didn’t have access to a long course pool to train in prior. Makes you wonder what these swimmers could do if they got to get a second finals swim.
These races were at a long course pool. There are some LSC’s that have 1, maybe 2 at best, and rarely get access to them, sometimes warmups being the only opportunity.