The top three 400 medley relays in the history of yards swimming all happened on Saturday night in the A-Final at the 2015 Women’s NCAA Division I Swimming & Diving Championships, with the charge led by the Stanford Cardinal in 3:26.41.
That surpassed the 3:27.31 done by Stanford last year as the old American, NCAA, and U.S. Open Record (all four swimmers are Americans).
What’s even scarier about the Stanford relay is that they have three new legs, and three freshman, as compared to last year’s senior-heavy relay. Only breaststroker Katie Olsen was a carryover.
A split comparison
| Stanford | Stanford | Virginia | Cal | |
| Old Record | New #1 | New #2 | New #3 | |
| Back | DiRado – 51.42 | Howe – 52.00 | Bartholomew – 50.19 | Bootsma – 50.84 |
| Breast | Olsen – 58.27 | Olsen – 58.07 | Simon – 57.52 | Garcia – 59.28 |
| Fly | Lee – 50.82 | Hu – 50.89 | Williamson – 51.01 | Osman – 51.07 |
| Free | Neal – 47.00 | Manuel – 45.45 | Thomas – 47.69 | Franklin – 45.98 |
| Total | 3:27.51 | 3:26.41 | 3:26.42 | 3:27.17 |
Simone Manuel’s 45.45 anchor is the time that really leaps out. Vitrginia was multiple seconds under record pace in this relay throughout, and even a very, very good 47.69 anchor from Ellen Thomas wasn’t enough. The NCAA has moved into an era where a 47-second anchor legs are almost not good enough to win 400 medley relays at the NCAA Championships.
Cal breaststroke leg could have been worse. 🙂
Hats off to the Virginia relay for a great fight.
But Stanford had a very very very special talent to anchor.
Simon was 57.3 in prelims, could have used that at finals.
It’s worth noting that of all those three, Stanford is the only one technically capable of breaking the American record.