The Passing of Two Legends on The Week That Was

PHOENIX – It started as a possibility, then 24 hours later, the news came that the College of Charleston was cutting swimming and diving from its athletics program. The athletic director, Joe Hull, published a letter announcing the end of the teams after this season, adding that the pool the teams use would also be closed at the end of the school year. Hull wrote that the Stern Center pool was in need of major repairs and would cost more than $1 million to do, insinuating that the cost of updating the pool was the major reason for cutting the teams. The Division I team was in Columbia, South Carolina, on the day the announcement was made, competing in a tri-meet against the University of South Carolina and East Carolina University. No matter whether it’s financial or otherwise, we never like reporting on the slashing of collegiate swimming and diving, and we hope the athletes affected by this news the best as they try to figure out their next steps.

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Four U.S. national age group records fell over the weekend in three meets across the nation, and that takes our number four headlines. Regan Smith had an impressive day at the Division 2AA girls high school meet in Minnesota. Smith is a seventh-grader at Lakeville North and took advantage of rules that allowed the 12-year-old to swim in the meet and win the 100 fly and 100 back. Her 100 fly time of 55.42 beat Ella Eastin’s 11-12 national age group record by nine hundredths of a second, and she lowered her own 100 back record of 55.20 with a 54.69. In Maryland, Nation’s Capital Swim Club celebrated a relay national record on Friday with a 3:52.10, beating the previous record by almost a second. The foursome that swam that fast time was Ryan Catron with a 55.64 backstroke, Darius Truong with a 1:05.63 breaststroke, Anthony Nguyen who was 58.47 on the fly leg and Leo Goldblatt, who anchored with a 52.36 in freestyle. And finally on Saturday afternoon at the Arizona Division I high school state meet, Ryan Hoffer took one hundredth of a second off his national age group record in the 50 freestyle with a 19.53 for a new mark in the 15-16 age group. He’s getting even closer to Caeleb Dressel’s national high school record of 19.36 and he’s just finished up his sophomore year. Go to our USA page at swimmingworld.com to learn more about these amazingly fast swims, and congratulations to all six of them for becoming the fastest in history in their age groups.

USA Swimming made some updates to the roster for the short course world championships, including the withdrawals of Cullen Jones and Nick Thoman. But our number three headline concerns the news that Katie Hoff had to pull out of worlds due to some major health issues. In a statement through USA Swimming, Hoff said that the health problems that plagued her at long course nationals in August identified the real issue to be two blood clots in her lungs. Hoff appears to be back on track and said she’ll compete next week at the Arena Grand Prix in Minneapolis, but was told to avoid international travel during that recovery time. Hoff has unfortunately had some bad luck at her most recent big championship meets. She suffered from food poisoning at the 2012 Olympic Trials, affecting her ability to make a third Olympic team. We’re looking forward to seeing Hoff back in action next week in Minnesota.

The passing of two legendary names in swimming takes the top two spots on today’s show. On Thursday morning, Canadian Masters world record holder Jaring Timmerman passed away at the age of 105. Timmerman made history earlier this year as the oldest competitive swimmer when he swam the 50 free and 50 back at a Masters meet in Canada. That prompted FINA to create a new 105-109 age group just for Timmerman’s times, as no one had ever done an official race at that age. Timmerman was also a two-time world record holder in the 100-104 age group in the freestyle events. Before he was a celebrity in the pool, Timmerman was a part of the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II after immigrating from the Netherlands and led a normal life until he began swimming at age 78 while living part-time in Arizona. After that, he broke many Canadian Masters records and his fame was on the rise. I am sure I speak for other Masters swimmers around the world when I thank Jaring Timmerman for setting the bar high and giving us a great goal to achieve: to swim in a race if we live to 105.

And now we’re at the number one headline of the week, and it’s the announcement that Olympic coach Jack Nelson has died. Nelson had a very successful coaching career that spanned about four decades, but his legacy lives primarily in guiding the American women to the gold medal in the 400 free relay at the 1976 Olympics. Swimming historians will remember that meet as the one dominated by the East German women in large part because of the systematic doping that was going on but never caught at the time. Though understandably frustrated at losing to the East Germans in many of the events, Nelson, the head coach for the USA women in Montreal, got Kim Peyton, Wendy Bogliogli, Jill Sterkel and Shirley Babashoff to swim the race of their lives and break the world record. Nelson was a fixture in Florida swimming, coaching mostly for the Fort Lauderdale Swim Team, where he guided many world record holders and national champions. Nelson suffered from Alzheimer’s at the end of his life, and he passed away Wednesday at age 82 years old.

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