2018 Fran Crippen Memorial Swim Meet of Champions
- June 21st-24th, 2018
- Mission Viejo, California
- LCM (50m) Meet
- Psych Sheets
Note: Friday and Saturday’s events are flighted into “A” and “B” sessions in the morning. Sunday’s events are not.
The 2018 Fran Crippen Memorial Swim Meet of Champions, the meet with the longest name in the west, will return this weekend to the newly-renovated Marguerite Aquatic Center in Mission Viejo, California with a stacked field of national and international competitors.
Of major interest will be a number of young Chinese swimmers participating in the meet. Though we don’t know exactly which ones are training out of Mission Viejo full-time, we do know that new Nadadores coach Mark Schubert has been training a group of Chinese swimmers alongside his duties as the club’s new head coach.
Among the Chinese participants in this weekend’s meet will be 16-year old distance phenom Li Bingjie, who is entered in the 200, 400, 800 and 1500 free. Among her exploits this season in American meets is a 4:06 in the 400 free in January at the Austin stop of the Pro Swim Series. She’s currently the World Junior Record holder in the 400 free in SCM (3:59.14).
Men’s 19-year old distance swimmer Qiu Ziao is also entered in the meet, as the top seed in the 400, 800, and 1500 free. We couldn’t find any evidence of the seed times he’s entered with, specifically the 15:00.00 in the 1500 free, and all are round numbers, so it is to be assumed that the entry times are not real.
Among the highlights of the domestic field is U.S. National Teamer Katie McLaughlin, who trained with Mission Viejo through high school but currently attends Cal. She’s entered in the 50 free, 100 free, 50 back, and 400 IM. That means she won’t be swimming any butterfly races: the events where she’s done her damage nationally and internationally, and where she’s the Meet Record holder over 200 meters.
Also travelling down from the bay area is Stanford swimmer Ella Eastin, who is the defending champion, and fastest-swimmer-ever, in the 200 fly, 200 IM, and 400 IM. She’s the pre-season favorite for NCAA Swimmer of the Year in 2019, and will swim the 200 free, 200 breast, 200 fly, and 50 free this weekend in Mission Viejo.
Other Noteworthy Attendees:
- Two-time Olympic medalist and 2017 World Championship silver medalist in the 100 breaststroke Katie Meili, who is training with Team Elite in San Diego while on a summer break from law school. She’s part of a good women’s breaststroke field that includes 2012 Olympian Breeja Larson and NCAA All-Americans Riley Scott and Rachel Nicol.
- Besides Meili, also swimming from David Marsh’s Team Elite group is U.S. National Teamer Michael Chadwick, two-time 50 free Olympic Champion Anthony Ervin, Israeli National Teamer Marcus Schlesinger, Hellen Moffitt, and Kendyl Stewart.
- A group of swimmers from the University of Arizona will be at the meet, including Katrina Konopka.
- USC will be well-represented by both undergrads and post-grads, including World Record holder Vlad Morozov, and Nikita Lobintsev from Russia, American open water champion Haley Anderson, Azad Al-barazi, Dylan Carter, Anika Apostalon,
- From Texas’ Magnolia Aquatic Club, U.S. Junior National Team member Lucie Nordmann and her younger sister Lillie Nordmann will both be racing. Texas A&M All-American Brock Bonetti will also be in attendance from the lone-star state.
- 2016 Olympic relay gold medalist Blake Pieroni from Indiana.
- Challenging Anderson and the Chinese swimmers in the distance races will be another American open water champion Ashley Twichell.
Keep an eye on 14-year-old Justina Kozan. A name to remember for the future.
Looks like the entire future Chinese women’s 4X200 free relay of Tokyo is present at this meet! 4 girls aged 15 and 16 who have a PB of 1.56.
Where’s Daniel Roy? Is he still on king?
I’m assuming all of the local Mission Viejo swimmers, Zane Grothe, Ashley Neidigh, and Margot Geer will all be at the meet?
I’m pretty sure those three train at IU and just compete under the Mission Viejo club name. Not sure if they’d travel from Indiana to California for this meet
Well, that’s misleading.
Schubert isn’t capable of developing his own national level swimmers…he has to rent them from other clubs
You have no clue what you are talking about. Aside from the dozens of Olympians he has developed over the years, he has Brinegar on the US National team and up and comers Noah Brune, Riley Lexvold and Parker Macy in the fold.
Hmmm Hoosiereil – I’m not sure you have a clue. Those up and comers – how many points did they score at most recent juniors? If that’s all he has in the fold, probably not a great sign. So many other SoCal teams much better at developing age groupers into National caliber swimmers. Sad that he has to poach pros to keep he name in the news. His methods of just grinding out yards is no longer relevant for kids that aren’t pure distance swimmers.
FLYERSWIM – check out the winter jr results. I believe Rexvold scored in at least 4 of her six swims and Brune was 5th in the mile as a 16 year old. I believe that Macy is one of the top 14 year olds in the country in several events. Considering they’ve been working without a home pool for 18 months I think the Nadadores are doing just fine.
Just checked like you suggested – Lexvold – 0 points, Macy – 0 points, Brune – 17 points. That’s 17 total for the three. You should spend some time in Socal if you have such strong opinions about the swimming here. And btw, the Nadadores have much better pool space even during the pool construction than most teams. Feels like your using that as an excuse?
My mistake FLYERSWIM. I remembered that Lexvold had several evening swims. I didn’t remember that they were in the “C” final and not the scoring “A” or “B” final.
Also, my use of Lexvold, Brune and Macy was in response to TAA saying that Schubert wasn’t capable of developing his own national level swimmers. I identified them as “up and coming”. Swimming at Winter Juniors, and in Brune’s case scoring, would fit “up and coming” I believe.
I don’t know anywhere that I have commented pro or con with SoCal swimming, so I’m not sure where you think I have “strong opinions” of swimming there. My comments for TAA were simply that Schubert is still capable of developing… Read more »
TAA – what an ignorant comment. Schubert has developed and trained more National, World and Olympic champions than 99.9% of all the other coaches in the sport of swimming. He’s also a “swimmer’s coach” and not a marketing expert or self-promoter. It seems to me he’s done a great job basically starting over from scratch after the shameful firing by USA Swimming … which looked to me like it was retaliation because he wanted more of USA Swimming’s annual revenue to go towards supporting our internationally-ranked swimmers who were trying to stay in the sport after (or in some cases, in lieu of) college, instead of lining the PTB pockets. Like anyone in the public eye, there are some haters,… Read more »
Swimma you are stuck in the 80s. Let’s see what type of top tier talent he can attract in addition to the home grown swimmers he should be developing. His results at gwsc were very meh.
Golden West is a community college, what do do you expect from community college swimmers!?
TAA I just wonder what is your personal ax to grind with Schubert? I have been around Schubert for around 20 years and have found him to be nothing different than what DISTANCESWIMMA said – a swimmer’s coach who gets results. He is old school, without belittling or cursing at the swimmers. You say his results at gwsc were very meh, yet in a short time several of his club swimmers went on to swim at D1 schools (after competing at US Nationals or Jr Nationals), and Golden West College was very successful in it’s league. His success isn’t just measured by the number of national level swimmers he has coached (which is significant), but also by the number of… Read more »
It would be interesting to find out who is coaching the young female Chinese swimmers, and interview them. Liu Haitao, the previous coach of Chinese nationals Ai Yanhan and Bingjie Li, was reportedly suspended for two years in connection with fhe doping violation of their 16-year-old teammate Lin Zixuan who swam the second leg on China’s silver medal 4×200 Free Relay at 2017 Worlds. In interviews prior to his suspension, Liu Haitao used to cite Sun Yang as an inspiration and idol for these young Chinese swimmers. Now I guess they have American coaches like Schubert for their inspiration. Good luck to them all around.
In comparison to the Chinese 18u swimmers, any US club team stack up? Looks like some solid teams with 18u swimmers from California (makes sense) and Texas. Wish it came in excel format, so it’d be easier to analyze.
Why is Mark Schubert training Chinese swimmers?
$$$
Oh, that’s right. Ariana Kukors Smith is suing him, so he’s going to need lawyers.
Yes for the money, and Irvine to the north of Mission Viejo has a lot of national Chinese so they feel at home. They buy a lot of real estate in the area.
i dont understand the psych sheets