2021 ACC Men’s Swimming Championships
- When: Wednesday, February 24th to Saturday, February 27th Prelims 10:00 am | Finals 6:00 pm (1650 prelims Saturday at 4:00 pm)
- Where: Greensboro Aquatic Center, Greensboro, North Carolina (Eastern Time Zone)
- Defending Champion: North Carolina State University (NC State) (29x, 6th-straight) (results)
- Streaming: ACC Network
- Championship Central: Here
- Detailed Timeline: Here
- Psych Sheets: Here
- Live Results
We all know swimming is getting faster, but that doesn’t make it any less shocking when we see some swift swimming. At tonight’s ACC Championships, the top five swimmers all finished under 1:53.0. Watch the race video below, then keep scrolling for a comparison of how tonight’s final stacked up against ones from previous ACC Championships.
Courtesy of UVA Swim Dive
When the time need to make the A-final out of prelims was nearly two seconds faster than last year (including a DQ that knocked out a swimmer), we figured tonight’s final would be fast. But take a look at the chart below to see how the top eight times tonight compared to the last four years at ACCs.
| 2021 Swmmer | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
| Somov (UL) | 1:51.26 | 1:52.54 | 1:51.46 | 1:53.05 | 1:52.39 |
| Pumputis (GT) | 1:51.81 | 1:52.91 | 1:53.26 | 1:53.45 | 1:53.08 |
|
Van Der Laan (PITT)
|
1:52.76 | 1:53.69 | 1:53.90 | 1:53.62 | 1:53.19 |
|
Bottelberghe (ND)
|
1:52.87 | 1:54.04 | 1:54.04 | 1:53.92 | 1:53.52 |
| Nichols (UVA) | 1:52.98 | 1:54.07 | 1:54.80 | 1:54.66 | 1:54.68 |
| Barnum (UVA) | 1:53.02 | 1:54.85 | 1:54.86 | 1:54.82 | 1:55.19 |
| Coll Marti (VT) | 1:53.31 | 1:55.15 | 1:55.58 | 1:54.95 | 1:55.67 |
| Abalikšta (UNC) | 1:54.08 | 1:55.67 | 1:56.17 | 1:55.19 | 1:56.33 |
At every single place, the time tonight was more than a second faster than the time from last year, and the 5th or 6th place time tonight would’ve been enough to earn silver most years.
Not only was tonight’s A-final fast compared to previous years, but five of the eight men also set new personal bests tonight, and in most cases those previous bests came in prelims.
- Evgenii Somov – 1:52.22
- Caio Pumputis – 1:50.79
- Cooper Van Der Laan – 1:53.41
- Josh Bottelberghe – 1:53.34
- Noah Nichols – 1:53.49
- Keefer Barnum – 1:52.91
- Carles Coll Marti – 1:54.13
- Valdas Abalikšta – 1:53.49
In between prelims and finals, all eight men were under last year’s NCAA qualifying time of 1:54.04, so all should have another chance to race again next month at this time pool and improve their times.
And UVA’s Matt Otto, who was dq’d in the prelims (would have finaled), went 1:53.41 in time trials later that day!