David Rieder - (Author)

Prior to a weekend where she vaulted up the all-time rankings in her signature event, Claire Curzan was simply excited to face off against fellow teenage talent Torri Huske as part of her preparation for a run at her first Olympic team. This was not a focus meet or a taper meet, but the competition ...

COVID Pandemic Has Opened Olympic Door For Rapidly Developing Youngsters In less than a minute Saturday evening at an under-the-radar swim meet in Cary, N.C., two teenagers changed the complexion of the women’s 100 butterfly in the United States. 16-year-old Claire Curzan swam a time of 56.20, and 1...

Any meet featuring a large collection of the country’s best swimmers just two months out from the Olympic Trials can provide a large swath of information regarding the eventual makeup of the Olympic team. Even if few swimmers are swimming close to their best times at this point in the season, the TY...

Olympic gold medalist Ryan Held competed at the BSL Iron City Invite this weekend in Birmingham, Ala., near his training base in Tuscaloosa, and he recorded impressive times in the 50 and 100 free. In the 50 free Saturday, Held swam a time of 21.62, improving on his previous lifetime best of 21.87 f...

Katie Ledecky and Her Unbeatable Mystique Pushing Towards Tokyo Katie Ledecky is not “back.” That would imply she was ever anything but history’s most dominant freestyler and the world’s best female swimmer, which is simply not the case. But this weekend, at the TYR Pro Swim Series in Mission Viejo,...

Jeff Poppell, previously the head coach of the women's team at the University of Florida, will become the new head coach of the University of South Carolina Gamecocks. Poppell replaces McGee Moody, who stepped down in March after 14 seasons at the helm in Columbia. Yahoo Sports' Pat Forde first repo...

Claire Curzan, Torri Huske to Clash in 100 Butterfly This Weekend in Cary Claire Curzan will compete in a long-course meet this weekend for the first time since November, when she posted a stunning 56.61 in the 100 fly that moved her into a three-way tie for 12th all-time. Curzan will have some top ...

Caeleb Dressel and the Obstacles Awaiting His Olympic Showcase After winning a record-tying seven gold medals at the 2017 FINA World Championships and then a record-breaking eight total medals at the 2019 version of the meet, Caeleb Dressel had to wait out the pandemic-induced 12-month delay of the ...

Less than 48 hours after the University of Texas men’s team secured its 15th national championship, coach Eddie Reese announced his retirement after 43 years. The news came as a surprise to the swimming community, and even those in Reese’s near orbit did not know until days before. Texas athletic di...

Eddie Reese, the longtime head coach of the University of Texas men's team, has announced his retirement. Reese, 79, won his 15th national championship on Saturday when his Longhorns beat California by 27 points at the men's NCAA championships in Greensboro, N.C. Previously, Reese and Texas won nati...

California Golden Bears Come Up Just Short Despite Historic Performance No swim team was more impressive at the men’s NCAA championships than the California Golden Bears. They scored a whopping 568 points, the most of any swim team. Ryan Hoffer was one of just two swimmers to win three individual ev...

At the men’s NCAA championships, the Texas Longhorns received a massive momentum surge at the end of Thursday night, and they followed that up with an enormous Friday morning session, finishing with 10 A-finalists and four B-finalists in swimming, plus another in each group from diving. After almost...

Five Storylines for the Men’s NCAA Swimming Championships: Texas-Cal Again, Record Chase and More Two teams displayed utter dominance over men’s NCAA swimming in the 2010s: Texas and California. In nine of those 10 years, the Longhorns and Golden Bears occupied the top two spots at the national cham...

Freshmen & Sophomores Set the Bar at Women's NCAA Championships While this year’s NCAA championships saw a massive (but expected) shift in the team competition, with ACC teams Virginia and NC State finishing first and second after the conference had never previously had a team finish higher than thi...

Shaine Casas Poised to Step Into Spotlight at NCAA Championships (From March's Swimming World Magazine) Before the summer of 2019, Texas A&M’s Shaine Casas wasn’t exactly impressing anyone with his swimming. But if his performances since then are any indication, the end results could be spectacular....

Emma McKeon and the Story Behind Australia's Most Underrated Star (From February's Swimming World Magazine) After not qualifying for Australia’s Olympic team in 2012, Emma McKeon was ready to quit, but over the next several months, she had a change of heart and understood what was necessary to compe...

Lia Neal and Jacob Pebley Working for Change in Swimming (From Swimming World Magazine) In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, elite swimmers Lia Neal and Jacob Pebley created Swimmers for Change to promote diversity and to make swimming a more inclusive sport and a more inclusive community...

Michael Andrew Confident on Road to Monumental Olympic Trials Test (From January's Swimming World Magazine) Michael Andrew has been the target of criticism the last seven-and-a-half years for his decision to turn pro at 14, his unique training style (USRPT), his training plan and more. But he’s also...

Gregorio Paltrinieri Has Olympic History Within Reach (From November's Swimming World Magazine) Despite the global pandemic, the Olympic postponement and a coaching change, Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri put together some of the best swimming of his career last summer in the 800 and 1500 meter freesty...

Of the three new Olympic swimming events added to the program in 2017, none will draw more attention at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics than the women’s 1500 free, largely because of the woman who won the race at three straight World Championships, including by almost 15 seconds in 2015 and then more than 1...