{"id":509606,"date":"2022-07-28T17:48:05","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T00:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=509606"},"modified":"2022-07-29T09:59:29","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T16:59:29","slug":"u-s-nationals-kevin-vargas-pulls-away-to-capture-400-im","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/u-s-nationals-kevin-vargas-pulls-away-to-capture-400-im\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Nationals: Kevin Vargas Pulls Away to Capture 400 IM (VIDEO)"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. Nationals: Kevin Vargas Pulls Away to Capture 400 IM<\/strong><\/p>\n

A swimmer wearing a Florida cap got his hand to the wall first in the 400 individual medley Thursday night at U.S. Nationals.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the one you might have expected from perusing the pysch sheets. Or maybe even the second choice.<\/p>\n

Kevin Vargas<\/strong> bossed the final though in Irvine, giving his home-state fans a show by going 4:11.45.the native of Murrieta, Calif., was just behind British Olympian Max Litchfield<\/strong> for the first 200 meters, but he used a stellar breaststroke leg to pull ahead for good.<\/p>\n

Vargas split 1:10.48 on the breaststroke leg to the 1:12.71 of Litchfield, a gap the Brit couldn\u2019t close down.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a personal-best for Vargas by more than 6 seconds over what he came in with. He was second, in the sixth heat of prelims and to Litchfield overall<\/a>, in the morning with what was then a personal-best 4:14.07.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really love this pool,\u201d Vargas said on the NBC broadcast. \u201cI\u2019ve swam great in it since 2018, and every time I come here, I swim even faster.\u201d<\/p>\n