Kyle Gornay of the Redlands Swim Team broke a National Age Group Record on Saturday at the Southern California Swimming Club Championship meet in the 200 yard freestyle at the East Los Angeles College (who says that this isn’t a fast pool?)
Gornay, who is only 16, swam a 1:34.99 leading off his team’s 800 free relay, which breaks the 1:35.29 set by Dylan Carter from the Davie Nadadores just two months ago at Winter Juniors. After a lot of discussion over whether the dual-citizenship Carter was eligible to break NAG Records, Gornay has come through and taken it away regardless.
Watch the video of Gornay’s swim below, Courtesy of Chris Lundie and SwimItLive.
That’s now thrice that this record has been broken in the last calendar year; Michael Domagala was a 1:35.49 in 2012 as well; until last year, nobody had been under 1:36 (Matt Belecanech was the old record holder at 1:36.05). Now we’re looking at times under 1:35.
Gornay is a young high school junior at Redlands High School, and collegeswimming.com has him ranked as the number-two recruit in the class of 2014 (including his swims from this weekend). This was his only swim on the first day of this meet that runs through Monday. As our friend the SwimNerd pointed out via Twitter, Gornay has really impressive turns, especially for a 16-year old, and that helped him get this record.
Other big swims from Saturday include a 1:55.58 from Ella Eastin in the 15-18 200 backstroke. That’s her best time by two seconds, and at only 15-years old moves her into the top-20 all-time in the 15-16 age group. Eastn (49.85) and Lindsay Engel (49.54), who both made names for themselves at the winter Championships this year, were 2nd and 1st, respectively, in the 100 free.
Aquazot’s Corey Okubo won two races: the 400 IM in 3:54.26 and the 200 back in 1:47.87. Also on the men’s side, Peter Kropp, younger brother of Andrea, won the 100 breaststroke in 56.55 and Derek Kao was 2nd just behind in 56.56. Those two are both only 16.
Steven Schmul age 15 went 1:35 back in ’08 at winter junior nationals at UT Austin
He looks pretty tall. How tall is he?
I told you’all a while ago. This guy is the real deal.
Good god- age group swimming has progressed SO much in the last couple years. Just wait until there are 16 year olds putting up 1:33’s!
Really fast swim considering how bad of a pool East LA is. All the swimmers in warmup were coughing on the fumes from the chlorine.
On a side note: I can see myself in the video 🙂