After Big Yards Drop, Akron’s Aislinn Holder Hits Olympic Trials Cut in 100 Fly (59.83)

2024 NATIONAL INVITATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

• March 14-16, 2024
• FAST, Ocala, Florida
• Short Course Yards (25 yards), prelims/finals
• Meet Central
• Day 1 recap
• Day 2 recap
• Day 3 recap
• Full meet results
• Time trials results

The TCU men and women swept the team titles to conclude the main portion of the 2024 National Invitational Championships last week in Ocala, Florida, but there was still one huge result waiting for the FAST pool on Sunday.

That’s when Akron junior Aislinn Holder swam 59.83 in the 100 meter fly during a time trial swimming, stamping her ticket for this summer’s US Olympic Trials.

Holder spent her first two years of college eligibility at Indiana University. Last season, as a sophomore at Indiana, Holder struggled. Her season-best was 55.16, slower than the 54.64 that she went as a freshman.

Now training with Akron’s women’s butterfly group, arguably the single-best stroke group at any mid-major program in the country, she was back on track at the MAC Championships, swimming 53.46 to finish 6th in a race where her Akron teammates finished 1-2.

But then on Friday at the National Invitational Championships, she swam 52.99, becoming the 7th women in program history to break 53 seconds in that event.

During Sunday’s long course time trials, she first swam a 1:00.25, which missed the Trials cut by .06 seconds. Holder raced again on Sunday, though, touching in 59.83, with almost all of that .42 second drop coming over the final 50 meters in a gutsy swim.

Her best time coming into the meet was a 1:01.42 from the 2022 Indiana LSC Senior Championships.

She joins teammate Abby Daniels (59.50) as an Olympic Trials qualifier in the event.