{"id":601672,"date":"2024-12-12T18:46:24","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T01:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=601672"},"modified":"2024-12-13T05:37:25","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T12:37:25","slug":"speedo-winter-juniors-east-thomas-heilman-wins-200-im-50-free-on-second-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/speedo-winter-juniors-east-thomas-heilman-wins-200-im-50-free-on-second-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Speedo Winter Juniors East: Thomas Heilman Doubles in 200 IM, 50 Free; Female Speed Show in 50 Free Tie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speedo Winter Juniors East: Thomas Heilman Wins 200 IM, 50 Free on Second Night<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following a lifetime-best performance leading off his club’s 800 freestyle relay Wednesday evening,\u00a0Thomas Heilman<\/strong> of Cavalier Aquatic Club kicked off his individual slate of events at the eastern site of Speedo Junior Nationals in Greensboro, N.C., with strong swims in both the 200 IM and 50 free, with both swims resulting in comfortable victories.<\/p>\n

Heilman started out with a dominant win in the medley, recording a mark of 1:41.26 to take the win by more than two seconds. Lakeside’s\u00a0Thomas Mercer<\/strong> was within a second of Heilman for the first 150 yards, but Heilman’s 24.16 closing split was enough to get the job done with a time of 1:41.26. After cruising in prelims with the seventh-best time, almost missing the cut for the A-final, Heilman edged his previous best time of 1:41.41.<\/p>\n

Gwinnett Aquatic Club’s\u00a0Baylor Stanton<\/strong> closed well to touch second in 1:43.45, but he was disqualified. That left Mercer in second place in 1:43.51, with Ian Stutts<\/strong> of Marlins of Raleigh third in 1:45.59.<\/p>\n

Barely 15 minutes later, Heilman returned to the blocks to dominate the 50 free, clocking 19.26 to come up just two hundredths short of his best time in 19.26, beating out Greensboro Swim Association’s Albert Smelzer<\/strong> (19.70) and Huntsville Swim Association’s\u00a0Luke Bedsole<\/strong> (19.71).<\/p>\n

At the end of the session, Heilman came back to post a 43.95 butterfly split as part of Cavalier Aquatics’ 400 medley relay. At last year’s NCAA Championships, that split was surpassed by only three swimmers: Arizona State’s\u00a0Ilya Kharun<\/strong>, NC State’s\u00a0Luke Miller<\/strong> and Stanford’s\u00a0Andrei Minakov<\/strong>. The effort positioned Heilman to go after sizzling times in the butterfly events over the meet’s final two days.<\/p>\n