2018 WOMEN’S NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Wednesday, March 14th – Saturday, March 17th
- McCorkle Aquatic Pavillion — Columbus, OH
- Prelims 10AM/Finals 6PM (Eastern Time)
- Defending Champion: Stanford (1x) (results)
- Live stream: Wednesday/Thursday Prelims & Finals, Friday/Saturday Prelims / Friday/Saturday finals on ESPNU
- Championship Central
- Event-by-Event Previews
- Psych Sheet
- Live Results
Though her team took 6th place in the event Wednesday night, University of Louisville junior Mallory Comerford threw down the fastest 200 free split in 800 free relay history (to our knowledge).
Comerford swam second on her relay, and her time of 1:39.14 appears to be the first relay split ever under 1:40, though Katie Ledecky would anchor her relay shortly after in 1:39.87.
Before Wednesday, Missy Franklin held the fastest relay split with her 1:40.05 from the 2015 NCAA Championships. However, it’s worth noting that in 2015, the 800 free relay was on the second night of competition, with the individual 200 free coming beforehand on the same day (in this case, Franklin had already gone 1:39.10 individually).
The clear difference between Comerford and Franklin’s strategies lies in their 2nd 100 — Comerford was actually 48.80 in her first 100, while Franklin was 47.61. However, in her second 100, Comerford was 50.74 while Franklin was 52.44. Check out their full relay splits below:
| SWIMMER | 1ST 50 SPLIT | 2ND 50 SPLIT | 3RD 50 SPLIT | 4TH 50 SPLIT | FINAL TIME |
| Mallory Comerford (2018 NCAAs) | 22.95 | 25.45 | 25.33 | 25.41 | 1:39.14 |
| Missy Franklin (2015 NCAAs) | 22.52 | 25.09 | 26.05 | 26.39 | 1:40.05 |
Comerford will swim the individual race Friday; she is the reigning co-champion after tying Katie Ledecky last year in 1:40.36. Because of the relay start, it’s hard to predict just how close she might be to Franklin’s individual American record. It’s a little fairer to compare if we subtract both swimmers’ reaction times: that would yield a 1:38.93 from Comerford’s relay split, compared to a 1:38.33 from Franklin’s individual swim. From this, we might expect Comerford to be within half a second or so of Franklin’s record on Friday.
You could set your watch to MC’s splits.
Mallory will be very close to this time with a flat start. might even go under. look at splits. 50.7 coming home?? 22 high isn’t that crazy to open up from a girl with a 52.5 LC. Missy had the speed to be 22.9 47.7, and Mallory has more speed, and endurance it seems. Won’t be shocked to see a 1:38.
800 splits are always weird anyways and lately the trend is either something way faster than (usually due to an insane first 50… which wasn’t the case here), or very close to the flat start time. I think both Ledecky and Comerford are girls with less than stellar relay starts, and that both would be very close to… Read more »
The key question – does she get stronger (faster) as the meet progress. Manuel certainly has – both SC and LCM. Townley Haas certainly did two years ago with a fast 200 scy split and even faster flat start ( 1:30.46 ).
If Mallory swims under 4:30 tomorrow she won’t be faster 1:38 day after tomorrow and may not even break 1:40. If Manuel is able to swim 1 sec faster than in Pac-12 three weeks ago then she will win 200 free title
*1:39.8
Mallory might not break 1:40, but if she doesn’t do it I don’t think it will be because of the 500. I just choose to believe that a tapered world class athlete like Mallory is in good enough shape to make it to day 3 of a meet.
I don’t know how good her relay start was. If to assume that it was better than her average flat start by 0.5 sec (average estimate) and if to assume that she didn’t try to swim safe when brining her team back into competition then estimate of her individual 200 race will be 1:39.65 – 1.39.8. If to remember her WC last year then you will see that loaded meet affected her performance significantly and there was difference between first day of the meet and the last one. So she may not recover that well. But as you can see I mentioned too many “IFs”. She is unpredictable and we may have another Mallory than she was last year. And… Read more »
She’s not unpredictable what are you talking about? She consistently steps up when it matters. The difference between worlds and NCAA is too significant to compare the two. If anything if she could break 4:30 (which I don’t think she will) it will only excite her for her 200 the next day. Stop assuming the worst out of these world class athletes, they know much more about what they’re capable of than you do.
I’m not assuming the worst I’m trying to assume the most probable based on historical data. And as any mutual fund puts in disclaimer: the past performance doesn’t guarantee the future one. Could her excellent swim at 800 relay predict this morning 500 failure? Unless she decided to take easy on this race targeting tomorrow 200 free as the major her event in this meet.
It is interesting if any conclusion can be made about Comerford’s and Ledecky’s form based on the results of 800 relay. It would be nice to have reaction times to be more accurate with analysis but it looks like it’s too much to ask. What a shame. Is America so much behind technological progress?
It isn’t the same to swim the second leg trying to bring your team back into the competition and to swim last lag when after first 100 the job is actually done and the win of the team is secured. So I wouldn’t expect much more from Mallory in individual race and if her reaction time was 0.5 sec faster then her individual race will… Read more »
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
“Fastest relay split” is usually a qualifier for a time faster than a flat start. It implies a rolling relay start was used and is therefor artificially fast. I’m confused why this matters when it’s slower than the current fastest flat start.
Hey AquaTiger- It matters because it was a really fast swim and no one has been that fast on an 800 free relay split before. “Fastest relay split” refers to what it says. The fastest relay split.
I still think it’s pointless. We are celebrating slower than flat start times, just because they were done on a relay? That makes absolutely no sense. I’m not arguing that she’s quick, but let’s be honest about what we mean when we say “relay start”. We basically mean “add about 0.7 seconds and compare it to the flat start”. And we still have a flat start faster.
Can anyone name any other relay start that is slower than a flat start? Does it exist? I think that would be way more interesting because that would be rare.
Aside from Missy Franklin, no one has ever broken 1:40. Mallory Comerford is someone who may be able to break that barrier here. Her swim was significant as the fastest relay split ever and an indicator that we might see a special swim from her later on. We report every time someone swims the fastest split ever done on a relay. This isn’t an exception. Whether or not people want to celebrate it is another thing… But it was fast and newsworthy.
It’s their website. They can celebrate whatever they want
Men’s 100 Freestyle
NCAA, American, U.S. Open Record is Dressel at 40.00
I’m not 100% on the fastest Men’s 100 Free Relay Split ever, but I’m sure there’s never been a 39.xx split, so that’s another example.
Also in the Men’s 200 Free, the fastest relay split and flat start time are within ~.3 of each other.
It’s not uncommon for Dressel to be slower on relay starts than with flat starts. Even when he’s faster, it’s rarely by much. His fastest medley relay fly split this summer was 49.7, iirc, and then he went 49.8 flat start. He’s gone a slew of 17.9s on SCY 200 free relay, which is only 0.3s faster than his best, and one (maybe two) 17.7s, which is decent with a relay start, though still not what one might expect.
On Florida’s medley last spring at NCAAs he was 44mid, then hopped up a bit later and busted out a 43.5. Don’t get me wrong, fast is fast, but that’s a bit underwhelming when you look at how Jack Conger seems… Read more »
It shows she has the fastest time ever recorded during an 800 free relay. A true team player
Crazy to think Missy was faster flat-start…at a time when nobody else was under 1:42
Simone Manuel was a 1:41.45 in that heat when Franklin went the 1:39.1. But you are right she was still incredibly faster than everyone else.
Actually, Megan Romano went a 1:41.21 at 2012 NCAA’s. However, Missy dropped to 1:39.1 skipping over 1:40 entirely in her last collegiate race.
Neither part of that last sentence is true. She went 1:40 when she set the 200 free record the year before in 2014, and she also had 800 free relay later that session and the 200 back & 400 free relay the next day.
Skipping over her 1:41.92 seed time..not best time. Also, your second sentence had no relevance to this 😉
It had relevance to your comment. It wasn’t her last collegiate race.
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