After just missing Piotr Jachowicz’s 400 IM record this morning Queens Nick Arakelian left no doubt about his place in DII history. The freshman touched the wall at 3:43.84 eclipsing Jachowicz’s record of 3:47.62 set back in 2013. His time from tonight’s session would have the freshman ranked 23rd for DI NCAA’s ahead of Princeton freshman Corey Okubo(3:43.95).
Comparative Splits
- Jachowicz, 2013- 49.95/57.99/1:03.99/55.69= 3:47.62
- Arakelian, 2015- 54.52/54.62/1:03.14/51.56= 3:43.84
Arakelian was well off record pace through the first leg of the IM as expected but churned through the backstroke leg cutting the difference to less than 2 seconds moving onto the breaststroke leg. While Arakelian was again well under comparative pace for his breaststroke his freestyle leg rivals that of a Gunnar Bentz putting away the field and ultimately the DII record. The freshman is expected to finish the weekend racing in the 500 freestyle and the mile. After just missing the 1000 record on night one its safe to assume Arakelian will be looking to add his name at least once more to the record books.
As a Wolverine fan, it’s a shame he didn’t go to the University of Michigan. I wonder why he chose Queens over the D1 route… and also a few other top instate swimmers have chosen to go out of state?
Does anyone know if he is a (relatively) weak flyer or if this is strategic? I was a strong flyer in my day but found that easing up a bit on the fly made my other legs much faster. It’s an interesting strategy.
Last year at states, for the 200 im, he pretty much did the same thing. Went 1:47 with a 25 something fly split.
I have never seen anyone go 3:43 taking their fly out in 54.5. That is so unusual, but can definitely see the pay off in his last 100. Amazing swim.
At the international level I remember Italian Luca Marin who was always very very very far after the butterfly leg and came back to win medals.