{"id":444217,"date":"2020-08-17T17:16:12","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T00:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=444217"},"modified":"2020-08-18T05:14:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T12:14:00","slug":"world-juniors-gold-medalist-claire-tuggle-sends-huge-verbal-commitment-to-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/world-juniors-gold-medalist-claire-tuggle-sends-huge-verbal-commitment-to-virginia\/","title":{"rendered":"World Juniors Gold Medalist Claire Tuggle Sends Huge Verbal Commitment to Virginia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Virginia Cavaliers<\/a> continued to crush the recruiting game on the women’s side with a recent 2022 commitment from Claire Tuggle<\/strong>. She swims for the Santa Maria Swim Club in California and has a gold medal from the 2019 World Juniors in the 4×200 freestyle relay. Tuggle is one of the best recruits in the class of 2022 as she is primarily a middle distance freestyler but can also branch out to the 100 freestyle and 400 IM.<\/p>\n

Claire Tuggle made the A-Finals in the 200 & 400 freestyle at the 2019 US Nationals as she finished sixth in the 200 free and fourth in the 400 freestyle. She also reached the C-Final in the 200 IM where she placed 23rd overall. At the 2019 Juniors a week later, she won the 800 freestyle.<\/p>\n

At the international level, she finished sixth in the 200 freestyle (1:59.83) and seventh in the 400 freestyle (4:12.39) at the 2019 World Juniors in Budapest as well as anchoring the gold medal winning 4×200 free relay with a 1:58.39.<\/p>\n

\"claire-tuggle\"

Claire Tuggle. Photo Courtesy: Connor Trimble<\/p><\/div>\n

Tuggle famously got within a tenth of a second of Sippy Woodhead’s\u00a0<\/strong>legendary 200 freestyle 13-14 national age group record that has stood since the 1978 World Championships<\/a> at the 2018 Junior Pan Pacs where she swam a 1:58.58, missing the record of 1:58.51.<\/p>\n

She was also featured as a\u00a0Swimming World\u00a0<\/em>up-and-comer in our June 2017 issue.<\/a><\/p>\n

Tuggle will be joining a stacked Virginia team in the fall of 2022 that were seeded to win the 2020 national championship before the meet got cancelled due to COVID-19. With a lot of returning talent in place, as well as a strong recruiting class locked for 2021, Tuggle will only make Virginia stronger by the time she gets to campus, as\u00a0Kate Douglass\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Ella Nelson\u00a0<\/strong>will be seniors on the team.<\/p>\n

Claire Tuggle’s Best Times (SCY)<\/strong><\/p>\n