WATCH: Erika Brown Break SEC Record in Women’s 100 Yard Freestyle (45.83)

2020 SEC SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Tuesday, February 18 – Saturday, February 22, 2020
• Auburn, AL – James E. Martin Aquatic Center
• Prelims/Finals: 9:30 AM/5:30 PM Wed-Sat, 10/4:20PM Tues (Central Standard Time)
• Defending Champion: Florida (7x) (results)
• Live Video – SEC Network+ (prelims), ESPN (finals)
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• Championship Central
• Estimated NCAA Invite Times|NCAA ‘A’ Cuts
• Live Results

Tennessee senior Erika Brown closed out her SEC Championship career on Saturday with a win, SEC Championship, and SEC Conference Record in the women’s 100 yard freestyle. She swam a 45.83 that is the 3rd-best swim in history, and makes her the 2nd-fastest ever in that event’s history.

• Read more about the record-setting swim here.

Brown, as compared to Simone Manuel when the latter marked the fastest-ever time in this event of 45.56, has a very different approach to the race. At 5’11” tall, Manuel has a much more powerful stroke with a lower recovery, whereas Brown, who is only 5’7″, is more of a “sit up high and slide across the surface” freestyler, using a high windmilling recovery stroke. Brown, however, takes much fewer strokes in a yards race, owing to much longer spent underwater. This difference in particular is part of the reason why Manuel’s swimming, thus far, has translated better to the long course pool.

Stroke counts:

• Manuel: 11-13-13-14
• Brown mid-season: 9-10-11-13
• Brown SECs: 9-11-12-14

Whereas Manuel swam about 65 yards of her race on the surface, Brown only swam about 50 yards of her race on the surface. So whereas Manuel’s distance-per-stroke was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.3 yards, Brown’s is closer to 1.15 yards. That comes out to almost 6 inches per stroke more length that Manuel gets than Brown.

What’s even more interesting, is that Brown took even more strokes at SECs than she did mid-season, up to 46, meaning that as she’s tapering, her stroke rate is increasing.

Watch Video of Erika Brown‘s SEC Championship swim below:

Video of Erika Brown‘s Mid-Season 100 Free: