A small Longhorn Aquatics-hosted meet last weekend, that featured mostly local swimmers from GOLD, Lost Creek Aquatics, Nitro, and the hosts at Texas Longhorn Aquatics, in addition to a few other programs, included a corp of competing men who recently finished winning the 2016 NCAA Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships for the University of Texas.
Rather than travelling to Mesa, Arizona for the USA Swimming Pro Swim Series meet, these Olympic medal hopefuls chose to stay closer to home and race the timed-finals, age-group-separated events in their home pool. This afforded them the opportunity out of the spotlight to try some different things in their racing.
Among the most peculiar of those “tries” was the defending NCAA 200 yard breaststroke champion, and American Record holder, Will Licon, entered in the 400 long course meter freestyle, Licon actually swam breaststroke as compared to the traditional front-crawl, and did so in 4:40.77.
His splits:
- 100: 1:06.77
- 200: 2:17.29 (1:10.52)
- 300: 3:29.22 (1:11.93)
- 400: 4:40.77 (1:11.55)
While not quite as grueling as Gisselle Kohoyda’s 1500 breaststroke in 2013, the fact that Licon was still able to split 1:11 on the last 100 of this race is a strong indicator for both his 200 breaststroke and his 400 IM for the upcoming Olympic Trials.
He also swam a 2:13.02 in a formal 200 breaststroke later in the meet.
All 11 entries in the Boys 19 & over 400 free at the meet were University of Texas swimmers, led by NCAA 500 yard free champion Townley Haas. He swam 3:55.83 and had just enough over the last 50 to pull past his teammate Joseph Schooling (3:55.86), who won’t swim the event at the Olympics.
Other significant results:
- The men’s 100 free saw a rangy Haas win again, this time in 50.23, which is his fastest time at a non-championship meet. Brett Ringgold was 2nd in 50.50, followed by Matt Ellis (50.57), John Murray (51.03), and Ryan Harty (51.29).
- Jonathan Roberts won the 400 IM in 4:24.20 and the 200 back in 2:01.80.
- Rebecca Millard won the women’s 100 free in 56.09.
- John Martens won the 200 fly in 2:00.81.
- Quinn Carrozza won the girls’ 200 back in 2:13.51 and the 200 free in 2:05.72
- The fastest swimmer in the 50 free actually came out of the 17-18 age group, where Texas freshman Anelise Diener swam a lifetime best of 26.23.
400 I.M. Lol
Haas almost beat by Schooling doesn’t say much for that 400 he put up.
I can’t imagine how much pain his legs were in the last 200. Impressive.
Why is he wearing noseplugs? Is this from an IM? Do elite IMers wear noseplugs?
Yes that would be from an IM. And it depends. Most don’t, but some certainly do. Tyler Clary also uses one.
Savage.
Wow. Very consistent splitting for a race that I assume he hasn’t done before.
Also, he was out under the trials cut for the 200 breast, and then held the pace. That’s nuts.