Swimming Olympics level

Swimming Olympics level

Okay, we don’t need to go all the way back to the Olympics for more swimming in this post but I wanted to highlight a couple of great swims this past weekend, first in the 400m freestyle with Olympic gold medalist Ryan Lochte. Lochte was looking to make a comeback after a full year off the board with an eye toward the 2016 Olympics, which is obviously coming up very soon. He set a U.S. record this past weekend by finishing in 3:49.88. He led a sweep of the top three spots with Michael Phelps (3:49.69) and Jimmy Feigen (3:50.60).

Also on Friday, Stanford swimmer Jessica Hardy swam a fast 400m freestyle race winning in 4:16.37. Swimming in the outside lane, she battled for the win until the last 100m and finished ahead of teammates Janet Hu and Ally Howe. On the men’s side, Stanford senior Tom Shields took the win in 3:56.45. The battle in the middle of the pool was between Chase Kalisz (3:59.58) and Cal’s Ryan Murphy (3:59.85).

On Saturday, we took a quick look at Georgia’s Caeleb Dressel and Indiana’s Chris Yeo. Dressel recently set a new World Junior Record in the 100m freestyle with a time of 47.96. He proved he can swim extremely fast as he claimed the title in the 50m freestyle with a time of 21.73. He went back to the 100m freestyle and won that event with a time of 46.33. He finished in 4th place in the 100m butterfly with a time of 48.33, which is pretty good for an 18-year-old. On the men’s side, we were watching Indiana’s Jordan Geist who posted a qualifying time for the NCAA Championship (49.82) and went on to win the final of the 100m backstroke in 48.32. He added on a win on the 400m freestyle with a final time of 3:32.27, taking the title from Florida’s Will Licon.