{"id":466717,"date":"2021-03-25T15:58:50","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T22:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=466717"},"modified":"2021-03-26T05:16:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T12:16:50","slug":"jake-magahey-uses-stellar-back-half-to-win-first-ncaa-500-title-for-freshman-in-five-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/jake-magahey-uses-stellar-back-half-to-win-first-ncaa-500-title-for-freshman-in-five-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Magahey Uses Stellar Back Half to Win First NCAA Title in 500 Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

Georgia freshman\u00a0Jake Magahey\u00a0<\/strong>used an incredible back half and showed tremendous poise to score an upset in the 500 freestyle with a 4:07.97, holding off a hard charging\u00a0Kieran Smith\u00a0<\/strong>at 4:08.07 while Arizona’s\u00a0Brooks Fail\u00a0<\/strong>snuck in to third at 4:09.54.<\/p>\n

In a race that was dominated, and we mean\u00a0dominated\u00a0<\/em>on the front half by Cal’s\u00a0Trenton Julian<\/strong>, who flipped at the 200 at 1:36.45 and looked to steal the race from lane seven, while the other favorites, Magahey<\/a>, Smith and\u00a0Drew Kibler\u00a0<\/strong>were caught looking at each other.<\/p>\n

Julian nearly stole the race and looked to have it wrapped up, but hit a wall of pain at the 400 at 3:18.14 with Magahey pushing. Florida’s Smith, who has the American record in this, backed off the pace on the front half in hopes of running down the leaders but ran out of room, splitting under 25 seconds on his final three 50’s, and finished second at 4:08.07.<\/p>\n

Smith was out uncharacteristically slow, as he had come out of the 200 free relay a few minutes prior where the Gators finished second overall, but made his move late, and it wasn’t enough to win his first individual NCAA title. He will be the top seed in the 200 freestyle tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Texas’ Kibler, who was in the running for the lead early on, finished fifth at 4:10.04 behind Julian (4:09.78) in fourth. Arizona’s Fail is now ranked 15th all-time in the 500 freestyle.<\/p>\n

“I saw Trenton went out fast. In that situation, they either hold on, or they die, so I just swam my own race. I usually build throughout the race, just getting faster as I go, and eventually I caught him,” Jake Magahey said after the race. “The last 50, I saw (Kieran) start picking it up. At that point, you just have to swim your heart out. It means a lot. I have watched NCAAs my whole life. It is something I have dreamed of, and I honestly can’t even believe it.”<\/p>\n

Magahey is the current national high school record holder in the 500 freestyle and in just one year of college is the NCAA champion. Before the meet, Magahey told Swimming World\u00a0<\/em>he was looking forward to the 500 freestyle the most in a rematch with Florida’s Smith as well as the rest of the field that was set to make this a fast event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 500 will be exciting,\u201d Magahey said before the meet. \u201cI want to see if I can go down to 4:06 again and if I can top that. I think it was a pretty perfect race (at SECs) but I definitely can replicate it or go even faster. I am excited to see how that goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florida’s\u00a0Bobby Finke <\/strong>(4:11.11), California’s\u00a0Sean Grieshop<\/strong> (4:11.82) and NC State’s\u00a0Ross Dant <\/strong>(4:12.37) also raced in the championship final.<\/p>\n

Magahey has now won Georgia’s third NCAA title in the 500 freestyle as he joins\u00a0Sebastien Rouault <\/strong>(2008) and\u00a0Martin Grodzki\u00a0<\/strong>(2012) as winners of the event for the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

It is also worth noting that Magahey is the first NCAA champ in the 500 freestyle to not lead from the front since\u00a0Conor Dwyer\u00a0<\/strong>won in 2010 by 0.01, which is the closest margin this race was won by in the event’s history.<\/p>\n