U.S. National Junior Team member Baylor Nelson has been named the 2022 USA Today High School Boys Swimming and Diving Athlete of the Year winner.
He recently graduated from the Community School of Davidson just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina where he collected seven North Carolina High School 1A2A individual state championship titles over the course of his high school career. At the 2022 1A2A North Carolina State Championships, he became the first swimmer in North Carolina at any level to four-peat in the 200 IM. He broke his own state record with a time of 1:43.56 to earn 1st place. Nelson also helped Community School of Davidson to their first-ever state championship win that year. His other three individual state championship titles came from the 100 fly which he won during his sophomore, junior, and senior seasons.
In February, Nelson verbally committed to Texas A&M for the fall of 2022. He was ranked #2 on our Way Too Early List of the top-20 boys from the high school class of 2022 for being the fastest 200 IM’er in his class and dropping seven seconds in the 400 IM during his sophomore year of high school.
Nelson has continued to improve steadily. Most recently, he finished 3rd in the 200-meter IM at the 2022 U.S. National Championships in late July. He took down four of his lifetime best times at that meet in the 200 IM (1:59.13), 400 IM to place 5th (4:16.47), 200 back to place 6th (1:59.19), and 100 back to place 15th (55.49).
2020 Olympian Claire Curzan was named the 2022 USA Today High School Girls Athlete of the Year last Wednesday.