2024 Paris Olympian for the US Luke Whitlock will return to his club team, Fishers Area Swimming Tigers to train during the spring semester. Whitlock arrived at Florida this fall for his freshman season.
“I have decide that I will be training at Fishers for the second semester of this year and through next summer and my focus will be to try to make the long course worlds team this summer”
Whitlock originally committed to Louisville before flipping his commitment to Florida before the start of his senior year of high school. He saw huge improvement during his senior year, leading the class of 2024 in the 1000 and 1650 freestyles. He entered this fall as the #8 ranked recruit in the class.
In addition to his short course improvement, Whitlock also had a huge summer highlighted by making the US Olympic Team. Whitlock swam to a 2nd place finish at US Trials in the 800 freestyle, finishing behind Bobby Finke in a new 17-18 NAG Record. Whitlock also became the youngest male to make the US Olympic roster since Michael Phelps at the time.
Whitlock swam to a 15th place finish in prelims of the men’s 800 free in Paris as he touched in a 7:49.26. His best time of a 7:45.19 from US Trials would have finished 9th, about half a second off what it took to make the final. Whitlock was one of numerous Olympic swimmers to test positive for COVID-19 while in Paris.
Whitlock’s Time Progression
| Best Time At Florida | Heading Into Florida |
When Committed To Louisville
|
|
| 200 free | 1:41.44 (dual meet) | 1:37.17 | 1:43.20 |
| 500 free | 4:17.87 | 4:15.76 | 4:31.43 |
| 1650 free | 14:49.90 | 14:50.37 | 15:23.55 |
Whitlock was about two seconds off of his best time in the 500 free at midseason and dropped almost half of a second in the 1650 freestyle.
The Florida men finished 3rd at 2024 NCAAs and are still in the run for an NCAA title. Whitlock sat at #2 in the 1650 free and #5 in the 500 free on the Florida roster so far this season. Gio Linscheer leads the team with a 4:15.04 500 free and a 14:45.25 1650 free.
Whitlock is the latest swimmer that has announced they will return home to train with their club team. Aaron Shackell also made the US Olympic roster this summer, swimming the 400 freestyle, and will return to Carmel, Indiana after training with Texas this fall.
Next!
I didn’t swim amazing immediately so I’m hitting the eject button.
Different take ….
With all of the major changes to college swimming, NIL, and virtually no “cultural disapproval” associated with transferring, sitting out, flipping verbal commitments, etc. some of these stories are starting to become less newsworthy. Just not interesting, because so many athletes (in all sports) in college are so portable now.
There was a time when college programs/coaches would be leery and highly selective about transfers coming to their teams. Now? Welcome aboard, Scooter! (they just want the scores/times, nothing else matters)
Prefacing this by saying idk if this applies here, it’s just a general observation.
I feel like a huge problem in the US is there aren’t a lot of options for elite swimmers who don’t feel that college is the right thing for them.
Like, if you’re fast, but you want to go into the trades, I guess your options are stay at your club team, or find a pro group that will take an 18 year old who isn’t quite elite yet, but is on their way to being elite?
I would agree, but 99% of the elite swimmers feel like college is the right move for them both athletically and academically. There have been some over the years that fall into ‘college may not be the best move for me’ but for some reason we’re seeing it a lot more often now.
I’m sure I’m missing some but
Phelps, Hoff, Knutson, Andrew all did it
hope he makes the worlds team.
I think this brings up an interesting point about how freshman year in men’s college swimming is rough on top recruits, a lot the top male recruits don’t show top level results until year 2. You look at a lot of big name recruits out of high school that ended up being olympians, a lot of them didn’t have day 1 success in college. Jack Alexy, Josh Mathany, Matt Fallon, Luca Urlando, Carson Foster. All big name recruits who underperformed to their expectations in long course after their freshman year of college, and then had breakout years after year 2/3. I wonder if this played into the minds of Shackell and Whitlock especially with 2 big international teams being selected… Read more »
Even dressel his first year at Florida was objectively disappointing. If I remember correctly he was a b finalist in the 100 free and 100 fly… and was just a 42. And 45 in the 100 fly.
It worked out for him later on but the initial performance was definitely a bit lackluster for a swimmer that came in with similar times from high school
Imagine if Bobby Finke left Florida 4 months in because he wasn’t PB’ing every meet like magic.
IIRC, Finke’s fall semester freshman year wasn’t great. Then he had a hit or miss second semester, and then sophomore year became the best male distance swimmer in the US and hasn’t missed since.
There’s lots of new things to adjust to first semester, in and out of the pool. Can’t help but feel like these guys leaving after one semester are bailing out too early.
Looks like he found out he wasn’t interested in swimming yards at all. You’re not going to find a better overall training environment for a miler than swimming with the NCAA record holder and the guys who were 2nd and 3rd last year. I think he jumped the gun; most elites take a year to adjust to UF training and then absolutely take off, and he was already setting PBs. Kudos to him for letting them know now though so they can possibly give money to an international sprinter who can help them win a national title.