The 2013 Men’s Ivy League Championship looks early on as though it will be equally as impressive as the women’s meet last weekend, and may be even deeper with talent. Several swimmers are already flirting with NCAA qualifying marks after just prelims on the first day of qualification, with tons of season-best times going on the books.
Live meet results available here.
Live Video for finals sessions available here.
Men’s 500 Free Prelims
In this 500 free, Dominik Koll from Columbia and Rob Harder from Yale took the top two seeds this morning in 4:21’s, which for both is 10 seconds faster than their season-best.
Koll is really an interesting story; the 28-year old sophomore is a 2004 Olympian for Austria. He’s the holder of four Austrian National Records in the middle-distance freestyles, and his meters times are certainly good enough that he should be able to put up the kind of times to qualify for NCAA’s as an individual, especially in the 200 on Friday.
Those two will be chased by Penn’s Chris Swanson (4:22.51) and Yale’s Brian Hogan (4:22.92) in the final. As a warning to anyone at this meet who might have dreams of slipping through to a top-8 swim without expelling too much energy, the top seed coming into this race was a 4:26.2. Six guys went under that, and two others almost beat it.
Men’s 200 IM Prelims
Former Bolles swimmer Teo D’Allesandro, now swimming for Princeton, took the top seed in this men’s 200 IM in 1:46.46, but he’s going to have one heck of a battle if he wants to hold on for a title in his first-ever Ivy League swim. Dartmouth’s Nejc Zupan will be right next to him after a 1:46.45, followed by a third-seed tie between Harvard’s Chuck Katis, probably the most experienced of this field, and another Princeton Tiger Marco Bove. In fact, all the way through the top 8, the times from prelims only roll down to a 1:47.50.
Katis has to be the favorite going into finals, and he’s going to charge the breaststroke leg, but if there’s a swimmer in this field who has the speed in that breaststroke to at least hold on, though probably not chase-down, Katis, it would be the freshman D’Alessandro. If he has about a second lead going into that breaststroke, he’ll have a puncher’s chance.
Men’s 50 Free Prelims
Harvard’s money this season will be made in these sprint freestyles, and so-far, so-good as they took three of the top four seeds in the prelims of the 50. That includes Oliver Lee, who was the top seed in 19,.52, Chris Satterthwaite the 3rd seed in 19.86, and Griffin Schumacher the 4th seed in 20.07.
In between them is Princeton’s Harrison Wagner in a 19.58.
Columbia is showing impressive depth at this meet, getting two into this A-Final.
Up/Downs After Day 1
A reminder: “Ups” refer to swimmers who have qualified for the A-Final, and therefore will be from 1st-8th, barring a DQ. “Downs” refer to swimmers who have qualified for the B-Final, and therefore will be 9th-16th, barring a DQ.
Last year, this meet was a battle between Harvard and Princeton, with the Tigers winning by a somewhat comfortable 80-point margin; then Yale and Columbia were a few-hundred points back fighting for 3rd. Once diving is factored in, those groupings will probably come out about the same, but Columbia and Yale are swimming really well on day 1 and could tighten the points gap in swimming, at least.
Either way, this shapes up early to be another fun, balanced Ivy League Championship.
| Ivy Men’s Swimming | Up | Down |
| Harvard | 6 | 5 |
| Princeton | 6 | 3 |
| Yale | 5 | 2 |
| Columbia | 3 | 6 |
| Brown | 2 | 0 |
| Penn | 1 | 3 |
| Dartmouth | 1 | 4 |
| Cornell | 0 | 1 |
do your ups and downs include diving?
Nope.
Good luck Teo!!! Proud of you!
Zupan from Dartmouth absolutely shut it down this morning in the freestyle leg. If anyone should be considered a favorite tonight it should be him. Zupan appears shaved and tapered whereas Katis does not – most likely just a drop taper. Also, Zupan has swum the 5th fastest 200 breaststroke time in the country which is better than Katis has done so he should have no issues holding Katis off in the breaststroke leg of the 200 IM. Nor should Zupan have any issues with the freestyle leg as he is a former champion in the 1000 and mile at Ivy Championships and Katis got run down in the freestyle leg of the 200 IM last year by Jon Christensen… Read more »
I am very impressed with Zupan. He has shown some depth with the ability in the breaststroke and d free. Dartmouth is definitely on the rise- maybe they will become known as a specialized 200 breastroke/distance program.