But after the 1000, Ransford faded, and\u00a0out in lane eight, South Carolina\u2019s Akram<\/strong> Mahmoud\u00a0<\/strong>had surged. Mahmoud was\u00a0desperate for redemption after a narrow defeat in the event in 2016, and by the 1300 he found himself head-to-head with Auboeck, Smith and Wilimovsky.<\/p>\n After a furious, intense final stretch, it was Smith who pulled away on the last 50 to get\u00a0his hand on the wall first in 14:22.41. The time\u00a0was more than a second under the\u00a0American and U.S. Open record of 14:23.52. Auboeck finished second (14:22.88), followed by Mahmoud (14:22.99) and Wilimovsky (14:23.45).<\/p>\n After the meet, we collected impressions from five interested observers and will share those thoughts below. Those referenced include:<\/p>\n All watching the race that night in Indianapolis except for Jaeger, who was back home in New Jersey. But despite the distance, it didn’t take him long to find out his American record had gone down.<\/p>\n \u201cI looked at my phone and had a bunch of texts like, \u2018Oh my god!\u2019\u201d Jaeger said. \u201cTexts of different points in the each, who was winning at what time. It sounded really exciting. I do plan on watching it on YouTube, but I looked at all the splits, and it definitely looked like an exciting race.\u201d<\/p>\n Read below for a collection of their thoughts from throughout the race.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like to do predictions, but this race was sitting in my head since a week after it finished last year. All I was thinking was, \u2018How will this affect Akram Mahmoud, and what will be his resiliency level, and what will it mean for him training-wise?\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cGoing into the mile I knew it was a hyped up race. While I recognized that it had potential, it seemed like media, fans, etc. were setting their standards a little too high. Despite being a distance swimmer myself, it was, after all, the mile. I know that it’s usually not as exciting as so many other events.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cWhen I saw Ransford go, I thought, \u2018This is the guy in the pack that\u2019s going to try and break everybody.\u2019 But in looking at the race again, I thought he went too early. Too hard, too early in the middle. I think he would have been right there if he had just gone with the pack, stayed with the pack and try to race them. His rabbit approach in the middle third set the race up for the finish because it forced those other guys to stay at a pretty high intensity.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick<\/p><\/div>\n “There\u2019s such a mystique around Clark. Every race you wonder what the ceiling is and what the limit is\u2026 I couldn\u2019t help but have the feeling that once Clark got past the 700 or so and was still in the race that there was no chance he was going to lose. That\u2019s the honest-to-God truth\u2014I did not think it was possible for him to lose that race.<\/p>\n \u201cWatching him over the years, if he\u2019s in the race, there\u2019s no one in the sport that has the capacity to finish like he does. I watched it his sophomore year in Iowa when he won the 500 free and just took everyone down the last 100. The races that he wins and that he succeeds in, he just has to be in the race. Nobody else can finish like he does on the last 500.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cWe did our best to have Akram put last year\u2019s race out of his mind. We worked really hard to design a race plan that was going to keep that from happening this year. It basically came down to him running out of gas last year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe plan this year was to take the first 500 out in about 4:22. Wanted to be about 4:22-4:23 on the second 500. As we\u2019re watching that first 500 unfold, and he came into wall in about 4:23, we knew that he was on his race plan. He was where he needed to be.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cI knew Mahmoud had done well last year, but he seemed so out of it. I knew he relied on a really quick latter half, but the gap still seemed like far too much.<\/p>\n \u201cI don’t really know how it happened but suddenly Mahmoud was very in the race, swimming from the outside. It was a five-man race that fell off to a four-man race and for that last 200 or so it seemed like every 50 had to be the last.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cWe get into that last 50, and I\u2019m like, \u2018This is Clark\u2019s race. He\u2019s going to kill those guys. It\u2019s not even going to be close. He\u2019s going to win by a bodylength and a half.\u2019 That\u2019s what I felt like was going to happen.<\/p>\n \u201cThen with 25 to go, I see Auboeck winding up and closing on Clark\u2026 And then I see Mahmoud\u2014maybe he\u2019s going to do it. And the whole time that last 25, I\u2019m thinking, \u2018It\u2019s gotta be Mahmoud. The story has got to be Mahmoud.\u2019 I honestly think, had Auboeck wound it up 10 to 25 yards earlier, he runs down Clark because it seemed like the last five strokes, [Smith] didn\u2019t have a lot left in the tank.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a tough as hell swim. In retrospect, after finding out about the injury and how much it affected him during the race. That\u2019s one of the tougher, more gritty performances I\u2019ve seen when you consider that he set a record as well.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cIn one race, I had a quick drop from fastest of all-time to now fifth.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where you can be upset that he didn\u2019t win\u2014because you know he wanted it really badly\u2014but what do you tell a young man that just put up the third-fastest time in history but then also had the third-fastest time in the heat. We just told him how proud we were of him. The biggest thing is he raced with heart. He battled through that last 300 to 400 yards.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cIt’s cool to think that Katie Ledecky<\/strong> does that by herself all the time\u2014sets a world record. This was in some ways equally impressive because all four of these guys demolished history, but they relied on each other and raced one another to get there. If you put walls in between their lanes and they were swimming alone, what would have been the result? I don’t know, but I really think those times were the result of it being a race, not just four very talented swimmers.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cA lot of people were saying they thought the mile was the best race of the meet, and I have a lot of pride for that, just being a miler. I\u2019m biased\u2014I would say it was the most awesome race of the meet with how much back-and-forth there was going on\u2014but to hear other people say it and to hear other non-distance people say it is awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCongrats to all of them. Great representation of distance racing in general.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t talking about the greatest race ever. I was talking about the greatest race I\u2019ve ever seen in person. Would I put it ahead of the [U.S. 400 free] relay victory [from 2008] and the [Jason<\/strong>] Lezak<\/strong> close? I wouldn\u2019t do that. But in terms of what it was, what we all saw and what I just witnessed with my own two eyes in front of me, I think I\u2019ll be hard-pressed in my career to ever call a race that has that kind of drama.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cTo see all four of those guys go under the American record, in my opinion, that\u2019s the greatest race in NCAA history. Definitely the greatest mile, but to have those guys over that length of time to battle in an event that\u2019s so mentally challenging, so physically challenging, and then the four of them go the four fastest times ever in the event, that was awesome. That was fun. All the guys in that heat deserved a pat on the back because it was incredible.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Long before four men touched the wall with the four fastest times in history, all of those watching the 1650 free at the men\u2019s NCAA championships realized that they were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":249501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6,17,61052],"tags":[48266,31765,33438,27592,25629,25272,40686,26979,25031,26736,60127,42941,28241],"class_list":["post-249500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-college","category-commentary","category-morning-splash","tag-akram-mahmoud","tag-austin-surhoff","tag-cathleen-pruden","tag-clark-smith","tag-connor-jaeger","tag-david-rieder","tag-felix-auboeck","tag-jordan-wilimovsky","tag-katie-ledecky","tag-mcgee-moody","tag-morning-splash","tag-pj-ransford","tag-sam-kendricks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n\n
Kendricks on the lead-up to the race:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Pruden pre-race:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Kendricks on Ransford:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Surhoff on Smith:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
![\"clark-smith-2017](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/clark-smith-2017-mncaa-3662-280x187.jpg\")
Moody on Mahmoud:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Pruden on Mahmoud:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Kendricks on finish:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Surhoff on seeing an injured Smith helped off the deck:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Jaeger on the record:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Moody on Mahmoud\u2019s post-race emotions:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Pruden\u2019s final impression:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Jaeger from the distance swimmer\u2019s perspective.:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Kendricks\u2014\u201cthe greatest race I\u2019ve ever witnessed:\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Moody on historical implications:<\/strong><\/h3>\n