Distance Swimming is Great Again

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

By Robbie Dickson, Swimming World College Intern

Now that the men’s NCAA Championships are over, it is time to reflect back on the record-breaking weekend and determine which race was the most exciting. Many would argue that it would be the 100 butterfly, where Florida’s Caelab Dressel upset Texas’ Joseph Schooling for the win. But that excitement only lasted forty-three seconds. In my opinion, the 1650 was the most exciting, and nerve-wracking, race of the meet. It made distance swimming great again.

Photo Courtesy: Dan D’Addona

Katie Ledecky first captured the world’s attention at the 2012 London Olympics when she upset hometown favorite, Rebecca Adlington, for the gold medal and Olympic record in the 800 freestyle. Since London, she has crushed every distance record in the books, piled up gold medals, and become famous for swimming pictures where she is the only one in the frame.

Ledecky has simply changed the sport, and has broken barriers that previously were only broken in dreams. She has allowed little girls, and Leah Smith, to dream further than ever before. Ledecky has done her part in making distance swimming great again.

The distance men, on the other hand, have not quite been able to captivate the crowds like Ledecky has. A good portion of their attention has not been that great. From all of Sun Yang‘s in and out of pool drama, to Park Tae Hwan’s suspension, as well as the constant scrutiny the media has put on Clark Smith for under-performing at the 2016 NCAA Championships.

Every swimmer in their careers is going to have a meet that just does not go the way they want it to, but not many are going to receive the public beat down that Smith received. At almost every major meet post NCAAs, comments and articles would be written about his one poor meet and if he would ever be able to perform under pressure again. It was a constant black cloud that was hung overtop of him. Needless to say, this type of attention is not very “great”.

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

But during this time, there have been some great moments in distance swimming on the men’s side. Connor Jaeger broke and re-broke the American record in the 1500 that had stood since 2004 by Larsen Jensen. Jaeger also earned the silver medal at the Rio Olympics in the 1500, snapping a medal drought that had been around since Jensen’s silver medal in Athens.

Michael McBroom had some great swims, with the most notable coming in American record form in the 800 freestyle at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona. McBroom won the silver medal behind Sun Yang. Clark Smith, when not being “hated” on, has received some positive attention. Smith smashed distance legend Erik Vendt’s American record by three seconds with a time of 8:33.93. Smith was also ten seconds under the NCAA record, which was held by McBroom. These performances laid the foundation for distance swimming to become great again.

Now let’s travel back in time to last weekend’s NCAA Championships in Indianapolis, Indiana. On Saturday, at approximately 6pm EST, distance swimming, once again, became great.

Swimmers, coaches, spectators, and online viewers were treated to a distance race unlike any other. Five different swimmers would take leads throughout the race. Smith jumped on the race early with Michigan’s Felix Auboeck and Northwestern’s Jordan Wilimovsky on either side of him. Then out in lane one, Michigan’s PJ Ransford, made his push and it became a four man race at the 600.

Ransford took over at the 700 with Smith, Auboeck, and Wilimovsky all close behind. He continued to lead for the next 600 yards, with the other three swimmers still right on his heels. Auboeck probably blocked Smith and Wilimovsky’s ability to see Ransford all the way out in lane one. All the while this was happening, South Carolina’s Akaram Mahmoud was sneaking up in lane eight.

At the 1200 the race was completely up for grabs between five guys separated by two seconds. Wilimovsky took his turn in the lead over Ransford at the 1300, and carried that lead through the 1400 with Auboeck, Mahmoud, and Smith right behind. Ransford began to fall back at this stage of the race. Mahmoud and Smith made their push with Mahmoud leading through the 1500 five one-hundreths ahead of Smith, and three tenths ahead of Wilimovsky. Auboeck was about one second behind the leaders.

Smith would then finally take back the lead that he had 1000 yards ago, and would hold off the field to break every existing record in the books and win the NCAA title. But the race for second was a great one, as Auboeck, who was fourth with a fifty to go, found another gear to pass Mahmoud and Wilimovsky for the silver medal.

After all the dust settled and people’s heart rates returned to their resting states, they realized that the top four finishers (Smith, Auboeck, Mahmoud, and Wilimovsky) were all under the previous fastest time ever. Ransford would end up finishing fifth after sacrificing himself throughout the middle portion of the race. Never has a distance race been that close and exciting throughout its entirety.

With five different men taking control of the race, it brought us back to the purity of the sport. Good old-fashioned racing. Trying to get your hand on the wall before anyone else.

The men’s mile at the 2017 NCAA Championships made distance swimming great again.

All commentaries are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swimming World Magazine nor its staff.

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Diane Pavelin

7 years ago

Ledecky made distance swimming great again on a worldwide stage of the Olympics. Most people don’t pay attention to NCAA swimming, men or women.

Susan L. Lansbury

7 years ago

Reply to Diane Pavelin

Not true! NCAAs are awesome!

Diane Pavelin

7 years ago

Reply to Diane Pavelin

Susan L. Lansbury Not saying they aren’t. But to the general public, they’re only interested in swimming during the Olympics.

Kathy Allman

7 years ago

Women should be allowed to swim the 1500 in the Olympics. Then distance swimming could be great AND fair!!!

John Smith

7 years ago

Reply to Kathy Allman

……and men the 800

Leander

7 years ago

Reply to Kathy Allman

Kathy, the IOC (in addition to being a group of corruptocrats) has always been far behind the average summer swim club league, which recognized at last 45 or 50 years ago that there is absolutely no reason why males and females should not swim the same events. They should both swim the 800 and 1500 (which are much different events) at the Olympics. Doubt that will happen soon.

SwimMom820

7 years ago

Rumor on deck is that Northwestern’s Jordan Wilimovsky is going to Penn State as a graduate assistant. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Combined with NBAC coach, Erik Posegay, that could catapult Penn State’s distance program into NCAA level contention.

Pam Kirsch Magnan

7 years ago

It was and still is always great in our house..,having 2 distance swimmers!

Michael Ker

7 years ago

Love to see this!

Jen Martin

7 years ago

It has and still is great.

Ailish Dougherty

7 years ago

Brandon Jinn

Ed Carrera

7 years ago

Mike Ho

Richey Swim

7 years ago

Good article! To say distance swimming is great again goes against my 34 years of coaching experience. I find that once a day is the new double and 5 days a week is the new 7. At a clinic at Arizona GPX they asked the participants who likes distance and 0 kids responded.
I swam in a lane with a girl who held the Texas record in the mile for 25 years. I coached the American Record holder (Larsen Jensen) I grew up with Dicarlo and Brackett in Colorado who went 15:07 and 15:08 back in the early 80s while in HS. I coached on MVN where the team records were in some cases the world records. I graduated HS same year as Kostoff, and my daughter is an NCAA D1 miler. The Ledecky effect is real but she’s so advanced it’s almost demoralizing. The men’s NCAA mile speeds were inevitable. We’ll see if they translate to LCM. We have a culture shift to sprint and the scholastic swimming program will never produce on 6 month season and 20hrs. The band practices 13 hours straight I’ve seen USA synchro A team practice ALL DAY. Encouraged yes! Satisfied never

Susan L. Lansbury

7 years ago

Distance swimming was always great! ?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?‍♀️?

cynthia curran

7 years ago

Reply to Susan L. Lansbury

If are a backstroker, breaststroke or flyer, the longest distance is only 200 yards. This is why their are more sprinter.