Who Picked Up NCAA Championship Qualifying Times at World Juniors?

The NCAA season has kicked off without a single NCAA meet being swum.

The wrinkle in the 2023-2024 season is that the World Junior Swimming Championships, which concluded on Saturday in Netanya, Israel, are an approved NCAA Championship qualifying meet, which means that a group of young swimmers had the chance to earn NCAA qualifying standards before swimming a single NCAA meet.

We identified a group of top-level Division I swimmers who raced at the World Junior Championships and who are beginning their collegiate swimming careers this week. Using the NCAA’s new long course meters to short course yards conversions, that means we have some new nation-leading times already.

• It’s possible probable that we’ve missed some, so leave them in the comments and we’ll do the conversions.
• See the NCAA conversion standards here.

Things we don’t know:

• If the NCAA will accept mixed relay leadoff legs from international meets

Things we know:

• Times are truncated, not rounded, to the hundredth

Jojo Ramey, Florida

• 200 back – 2:10.18 (Converted – 1:52.86)
• 100 back – 1:02.27 (Converted – 53.73)

Hannah Bellard, Michigan

• 200 fly – 2:11.26 (Converted – 1:56.95)

Ethan Harrington, Stanford

• 100 fly – 55.05 (Converted – 48.33)
• 50 free – 23.44 (Converted – 20.39)

Caleb Maldari, Florida

• 100 back – 55.48 (Converted – 46.88)
• 200 back – 2:01.34 (Converted – 1:44.23)

Nikoli Blackman, Tennessee

• 50 free – 22.35 (Converted – 19.44)
• 100 free – 49.54 (Converted – 43.24)

Victoria Raymond, Tulane

• 200 fly – 2:13.68 (Converted – 1:59.10)
• 100 fly – 59.38 (Converted – 52.67)

Filip Senc-Samardzic, Arizona State

• 100 free – 49.80 (Converted – 43.47)
• 100 fly – 52.85 (Converted – 46.40)
• 200 free – 1:49.82 (Converted – 1:36.09)

Mehlika Yalcin, Washington State

• 200 fly – 2:15.45 (Converted – 2:00.68)
• 100 fly – 1:01.80 (Converted – 54.81)

Of the above times, only one would have earned NCAA Invites last year: Jojo Ramey, who is committed to Florida. Her silver medal in the 200 back converts to 1:52.86, half-a-second under the 1:53.34 that was invited last year. Ramey’s best actual yards time is 1:52.42 from December 2021.

While times do tend to get faster year-on-year, she’s got some breathing room there.

Some of the rising high school juniors and seniors on the team would have as well; for example, Bailey Hartman‘s 58.44 in the 100 fly. Last year, it took 52.20 in yards (58.85 converted in long course) to qualify for NCAAs in that event.

Her best actual time in yards is 52.52 done in March 2023 at Sectionals. The three-time defending NCAA Champions at Virginia just keep pulling W’s, even before they kick off their season.

Most, if not all of these swimmers, are likely to qualify for NCAAs eventually in relays and/or individual events, but ultimately, the addition of World Juniors to the qualifying process seems to have been largely a moot point.