{"id":525166,"date":"2023-03-18T15:36:55","date_gmt":"2023-03-18T22:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=525166"},"modified":"2023-03-18T19:09:42","modified_gmt":"2023-03-19T02:09:42","slug":"ncaa-womens-championships-kensey-mcmahon-uses-late-spurt-to-claim-title-in-1650-free-second-win-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/ncaa-womens-championships-kensey-mcmahon-uses-late-spurt-to-claim-title-in-1650-free-second-win-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Women’s Championships: Kensey McMahon Uses Late Spurt to Claim Title in 1650 Free; Second Win This Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

NCAA Women’s Championships: Kensey McMahon Uses Late Spurt to Claim Title in 1650 Free; Second Win This Week<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over 66 lengths of the pool in the fastest heat of the 1650 freestyle, three different swimmers held the lead for long stretches. At the beginning, Texas’ Erica Sullivan\u00a0<\/strong>went into attack mode, using her familiar rapid tempo to pull into a strong lead right away. Sullivan held the lead until the 550-yard mark, but shortly after, Indiana’s\u00a0Ching Hwee Gan<\/strong> took the lead out of lane eight and built a big advantage of more than five yards. Sullivan was fading, but in the middle of the pool, defending champion\u00a0Paige McKenna<\/strong> and 500 free winner\u00a0Kensey McMahon<\/strong> were closing the gap.<\/p>\n

Slowly, McMahon broke away from McKenna and got closer to Gan, and with 10 laps remaining, the Alabama fifth-year swimmer took the lead. She would only build on that advantage over the final stretch of the race, and by the finish, she was almost two-and-a-half-seconds clear. McMahon touched in 15:43.84 to secure the win, while Gao finished second in 15:46.28.<\/p>\n

The title was McMahon’s second of the week after an unexpected win in the 500 free Thursday evening. In this one, however, McMahon had been steadily emerging as a national contender over the last few years, and after she placed third at last season’s NCAAs, her return to college swimming for a fifth year has been her best.<\/p>\n

“It definitely doesn\u2019t feel real. The mile has been something I\u2019ve been dreaming of and working toward for the last several years. The 500 definitely came as a little bit of a surprise, but definitely a cool way to end my collegiate career,” McMahon said. “There was a lot of back-and-forth. It was a really competitive field. There was a lot of depth, and so I just made sure that I was doing my own thing, and then, when we got to that last 300, I was like, \u2018Just go. I\u2019ve done plenty of 300s.\u2019”<\/p>\n

McKenna ended up third in 15:48.71, about two seconds off her season-best time of 15:46.90 from last month’s Big Ten Championships and almost eight seconds off her winning time from last season’s meet (15:40.84).\u00a0Tennessee’s\u00a0Kristen Stege<\/strong> was fourth in 15:50.24, while Sullivan fell to fifth (15:50.27). Another Tennessee swimmer,\u00a0Ally Breslin<\/strong>, was just behind in sixth place (15:50.80), and rounding out the top eight were the top two swimmers from the afternoon heats, Indiana’s\u00a0Mariah Denigan<\/strong> (15:52.18) and Georgia’s\u00a0Rachel Stege\u00a0<\/strong>(15:54.55).<\/p>\n

McMahon has been a presence nationally in the distance races for several years, but it has only been over the previous two years when winning national-level races and representing the United States internationally have become possibilities. In 2022, she earned a spot competing in the 25-kilometer open water race at the World Championships, and she was later selected to race at the Short Course World Championships in Melbourne. At that meet, she earned bronze in the 1500-meter free. McMahon attributed the huge jump to a “perspective change” after her junior year.<\/p>\n

“I wasn\u2019t super happy with my junior year of swimming, and last year, I really had a perspective change,” she said. “My faith is super important to me, so instead of swimming because I\u2019m Kensey the Swimmer, I\u2019ve really changed my perspective to swimming for an audience of one. I think that God\u2019s put me here to be able to swim and try to be a light in this world. That\u2019s changed my perspective in practice. I want to be there for my teammates. I want to swim because he gave me these abilities to, and I think that\u2019s made all the difference, and I\u2019m going to continue that mindset as I go into the future.”<\/p>\n