17-Year Old Aiden Hayes Blasts Lifetime Best 1:58.33 in 200m Fly

2021 Pro Swim Series – Richmond

• January 14-17, 2021
• Collegiate School Aquatics Center, Richmond, VA
• Start Times (Eastern time): Prelims:9:00 a.m. / Finals: 7:00 p.m.
• LCM (50m)
• Meet into (Both Sites)
• Schedule/Initial Timelines
• Live Stream (USA Swimming)
• Psych Sheets
• Heat Sheets
• Results on Meet Mobile: “2021 TYR Pro Swim Series – Richmond”

17-year-old Aiden Hayes of Sooner Swim Club won the Richmond Pro Swim Series 200 fly final with a time of 1:58.33, dropping 2.7 seconds from prelims, and about 3 seconds in total from his lifetime best going into this weekend. He touched the wall with about a 2 second lead over NCAC’s Justin Wright who finished in 2nd place.

That swim ranks Hayes 11th among American 17-and-unders since 2010.

Hayes defended the top seed spot that he earned in prelims with what was also a new personal best time, 2:01.04. Going into this meet, his lifetime best was 2:01.20 from 2019 Summer Nationals when he was 16 years old. With that time, Hayes was just one-hundredth of a second short of the 2020 Olympic Trials qualifying time. After Saturday’s finals session, he is well under it. 

During the Richmond prelims, Hayes also placed 13th in the 100 back, but he dropped out of the 100 back ‘B’ final in order to focus on the 200 fly.

From prelims to finals, Hayes shaved nearly a full second off the first 50, a similar amount of time to what he shaved off the last 100. 

This follows his 2nd place finish in the 100 fly on Saturday where he and two other NC State class of 2026 commits, Arsenio Bustos and Garrett Boone, all cracked 54 seconds. Hayes touched the wall first out of the trio at 52.81 which was also a lifetime best. This was more than 1 second faster than his previous best from 2019 Summer Nationals which ranked him 18th out of the all-time fastest 15-16 year-olds in the event.

In April, Hayes was bumped up to the #1 on SwimSwam’s list of the top 20 NCAA swim recruits in the boy’s high school class of 2021 for holding the fastest 100 and 200 yard fly times in his class.