Zane Waddell Misses Murphy’s All-Time 50 Back Split by .02 at SECs

2019 SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE SWIMMING & DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Tuesday, February 19 – Saturday, February 23
• Gabrielsen Natatorium, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia (Eastern Time Zone)
• Defending Champion: Texas A&M (3x) (results)
• Live results
• Live Video – SEC Network
• Championship Central

The University of Alabama broke the SEC Championship Meet Record in the men’ 200 medley relay on Tuesday to open the 2019 SEC Men’s & Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships.

The relay of Zane Waddell (20.22), Laurent Bams (23.08), Knox Auerbach (20.59), and Robert Howard (18.30) combined for a 1:22.19 in the final. They entered the race as the top seed, and came out with a win. The previous SEC Meet Record was a 1:22.94 done last year by Florida (none of the 4 swimmers from that Florida relay are on this year’s SEC squad); Tennessee was also under that record with their 2nd-place 1:22.79.

The overall SEC Record still belongs to Alabama’s 2017 relay from the NCAA Championships where they swam 1:21.89. No SEC school has been faster than Alabama’s 1:22.19 from Tuesday evening. Waddell’s 20.22 would have been the fastest split at NCAAs last year by .42 seconds. The only faster split that we could identify was Ryan Murphy’s 20.20 from the 2016 NCAA Championships. USA Swimming doesn’t track the 50 yard stroke events as official American Records.

Race Video: