Leah Smith Wins 400 IM National Title; Ella Eastin Draws DQ After Placing 2nd

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Leah Smith won her first national title in the 400 IM on Thursday night at the 2017 Phillips 66 USA Swimming National Championships. Smith has been known as a middle distance and distance freestyler over the last few years and tonight showed some IM strength that she has not flexed before. She won the race with a 4:33.86 to swim the third fastest time of 2017 behind Japan’s Yui Ohhashi (4:31.42) and Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu (4:33.71).

The big story of the race was the disqualification of Stanford’s Ella Eastin who finished second with a 4:36, her best time in four years in the event. Eastin made her first major international team with that swim but was disqualified for swimming more than a quarter of the race on her back.

Elizabeth Beisel finished in the second spot after the disqualification with a 4:38.55. Beisel potentially makes her sixth World Championship team in the process. Brooke Forde (4:39.19), Ally McHugh (4:40.25), Madisyn Cox (4:40.39) and Brooke Zeiger (4:44.57) also swam in the A-final. Bethany Galat was disqualified for the same thing that Eastin was DQ’d for.

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