Streamlined News: Recapping Weekend Headlines

PHOENIX, Arizona, September 30. THE college dual meet season got its official start over the weekend, with the men’s and women’s teams defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes on Friday afternoon. The next day, each team had a little fun in the pool with some very different events at the Michigan Water Carnival. In addition to events such as the 50 butterfly with a flip turn, the teams took aim at the new world records for the short course meters mixed 200 medley and 200 free relays. Big 10 rivals Indiana set the bar on Thursday with the first world records in those events, but those times were shattered on Saturday. Michigan’s mixed 200 medley relay won with a 1:43.75, but the Wolverines made a clerical error in putting Bruno Ortiz on the relay. Because FINA requires that all members of a record-setting relay be citizens of the same country, Michigan’s time won’t count because Ortiz represents Spain internationally. So, Iowa got that world record with their runner-up time of 1:47.61, beating Indiana’s record by two seconds. Michigan got the world record in the mixed 200 free relay with a 1:36.78.

Missy Franklin swam in her first college dual meet on Friday as the California Golden Bears traveled north to swim against Oregon. Franklin won the 1000 free and 100 fly, two events that are not part of her typical repertoire. Also doing well at that meet was fellow Cal freshman Celina Li, who won the 200 breast and 200 fly a week after winning the Queen of the Pool pentathlon title, and sophomore Kelly Naze, who won the 200 IM and 200 back.

The University of Florida, as expected, was the class of the field at the All-Florida Invitational. The Gators won every men’s event, and all but three women’s events. Though senior Elizabeth Beisel was able to win her share of events, no one stood out more than another in the first meet of the season. Florida State was about 300 points behind in scoring for the men’s and women’s events.

While all of that was going on, Caeleb Dressel was stealing the spotlight in Florida with two national high school records on Saturday at the Florida Swimming Pool Association’s invite. This is the same meet where Bolles put the national high school relay records on notice last year before blitzing them at the state meet. Dressel, a senior at Clay High School, started off with a 19.36 in the 50 free, taking down Vlad Morozov’s record, then beating Joe Schooling’s 10-month-old mark in the 100 fly with a 45.89. Interestingly, Schooling was in that race this weekend, and broke his old record too with a 46.20 that will stand as the independent school national record.

The famed RCP Tiburon Mile took place in the San Francisco Bay over the weekend, with some of the world’s best open water swimmers — and a few top pool swimmers — taking part. Kane Radford was on hand to try and defend his title from the past two years, but two Trojan Swim Club teammates had other plans. Ous Mellouli, the reigning Olympic champ in the 10K and a frequent participant in the Tiburon Mile, was on pace to win, but a tactical error worked in Mateusz Sawrymowicz’s favor, and he got his first win in this race. Ashley Twichell won the women’s race after many years of being the bridesmaid in this race. She’ll take the $10,000 prize money back to her new training grounds in North Carolina. The field included a few swimmers from the Cal men’s team, and it looks like the top finisher was Adam Hinshaw, who placed 14th out of 555 swimmers. We’ll have a complete look back at the RCP Tiburon Mile in the November issue of Swimming World Magazine.

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