Top U.S. 200 Butterfliers Thomas Heilman, Luca Urlando Will Race Tuneups This Weekend

A number of high profile U.S. National Team members will get their final tuneup races in this weekend, with about three weeks to go before the U.S. National Championships and World Championship Trials from June 3-7 in Indianapolis.

Among them are butterfliers Thomas Heilman and Luca Urlando, who will both race at different meets close to their respective home training bases.

2025 Richmond Spring Sectionals

• May 15-18, 2025
• Collegiate School Aquatic Center, Richmond, Virginia
• Long Course Meters (50 meters), Prelims/Finals
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheets

2023 World Championship relay gold medalist and 2024 Olympic relay silver medalist Thomas Heilman is scheduled to race in Richmond in long course.

The 18-year-old high school senior has always been pretty aggressive in his meet schedule, racing more than a lot of young phenoms, so this last-minute meet scheduling is not a huge surprise. He did the same thing last year and rode it to a win in the 200 fly and runner-up finish in the 100 fly at the Olympic Trials.

This will be his 8th meet of the year already.

He will swim a core lineup of the 100 fly, 200 fly, and 200 free, which will likely be his Trials lineup as well.

Other names worth watching at this meet include:

• Virginia Tech’s Landon Gentry, who had a really good college season and is the #2 seed in both butterfly races, meaning he’ll have a rabbit to chase in Heilman.
• 16-year-old Jane Wheeler from Crimson Aquatics in Massachusetts swam at just her 2nd Pro Swim Series meet in April in Ft. Lauderdale. She had a huge breakout meet in this pool at Futures last summer, dropping four seconds in her 200 free to go 2:02.68. She also swam 2:14.47 in the 200 fly. If she catches fire again in Richmond, she could turn a lot of heads this weekend.
• As the U.S. searches for new talent in the men’s breaststroke events, Gabe Nunziata is starting to get some buzz as one of those big hopes. He had a marvelous short course season, dropping a second-and-a-half in the 100 to go 52.47, and almost three in the 200 to go 1:53.73. Look for a pre-Trials marker out of him to see if he’s got a Cinderella story in him for this summer.

Athens Bulldogs Grand Slam

• May 16-18, 2025
• Gabrielsen Aquatic Center, Athens, Georgia
• Long Course Meters (50 meters), Prelims/Finals
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheets

The Athens Bulldog Grand Slam always attracts a solid crowd, especially from the host team, and this year is no different.

The highlight is the entry from Luca Urlando, who is scheduled to swim the 100 fly, 200 fly, 200 free, 100 back, and 200 IM. Urlando, 23, seems to be fulfilling the promise that he had as a junior but that has been derailed so far by injury. At the NCAA Championships, he won the 200 yard fly in 1:36.43 and smushed the NCAA Record in the event.

He rolled off that meet into the Pro Swim Series in Sacramento, where he posted a 1:52.37 in the 200 meter fly, which is comfortably the world leader so far this season.

While he, like most college swimmers, have a tougher training cycle to navigate, he is now the primary challenger to Heilman in the 200 fly – and on paper at least may not need to be at his best in Indy to grab a spot on the team in that event.

He will be joined at the meet by a number of University of Georgia swimmers like Helena Jones, who also had a very good collegiate season, and South African Ruard van Renen, who was runner-up at his National Championships in three events but without a World Aquatics “A” time standard.

A number of other swimmers from SEC colleges will join them, including a big group from the University of Alabama (Tim Korstanje, and Cadence Vincent, for example) and a smaller group from the University of Florida (Canadian Mabel Zavaros, Camille DeBoer, Caleb Maldari, and Mason Laur).

The meet will also feature some of the Southeast’s best young talent, like 17-year-old Baylor Stanton, a National Age Group Record breaker.