Cal senior Tom Shields made three consecutive events with NCAA Records on Saturday night of the 2013 Men’s NCAA Championships; his 1:39.65 knocked 7-tenths off of his old collegiate record set at Pac-12’s in 2011. He had actually been faster than that (1:40.24) at Winter Nationals in late 2012, but because he took the semester off and wasn’t representing Cal at the meet, it didn’t count.
Unlike Kevin Cordes in the 200 breaststroke, and Vlad Morozov in the 50 free, though, Shields’ swim didn’t rank as the fastest of all-time.
No, his 1:39.65 simply tied the 2010 200 fly swum by Michael Phelps, who without dispute is the greatest swimmer in history.
Shields said in his post-race interview that he actually got a tip before the race from Phelps’ coach Bob Bowman. Bowman told him that when he got a lead, he couldn’t slow and try to conserve energy; rather he needed to take off. So perhaps it’s only fitting that he sit alongside Phelps on this list, which in some respects is almost as great of an honor as breaking the record and holding that mantle alone.
Comparative splits:
| Shields ’13 | 22.27 | 25.77 | 25.75 | 25.86 | 1:39.65 |
| Phelps ’10 | 22.09 | 25.48 | 26.05 | 26.05 | 1:39.65 |
| Shields ’12 | 22.06 | 26.15 | 25.65 | 26.38 | 1:40.24 |
| Shields ’11 | 22.51 | 25.05 | 26.04 | 26.71 | 1:40.31 |
what are phelps splits from his other 1:39 swim? the 39.7 one?
What if Phelps had gone to college? What if he had flunked out? (that’s happened to other top swimmers) What if he had to swim as many races in three days as Shields did? What if the pool was filled with maple syrup? (Nathan Adrian showed that it could be done on the Mythbusters tv show). What if my aunt was a man? (then she’d be my uncle).
Forget the what ifs. Shields tied Phelps for the fastest time ever for a 200 yard fly. That’s it.
Imagine what phelps could have done had he actually tapered for a yards meet!
Who would’ve thought that someone would have a better back-half than Phelps? Congrats to Shields on a great collegiate career.
Either way Justin, Phelps is good company to be with.
The main difference was that Phelps wasn’t shaven or tapered for his, but this is SC yards which is irrelevant.