The Troféu Julio De Lamare or The Brazilian Summer Junior Championships, is an annual national Brazilian junior meet, where two categories of juniors compete; Junior 1 and Junior 2. Junior 1 category is for swimmers born in 1998 (age 17) and junior 2 category is for swimmers born in 1997 and 1996 (ages 18 and 19). The categories are combined for preliminaries but race separately in the finals. This year, the meet is hosted in Vitoria, Brazil from Dec. 2-5.
This meet is only open to juniors, but in two weeks, Brazil will host its open national, which is the first leg of olympic selection for the country. This means that not many juniors tapered for the Troféu Julio De Lamare, in order to best prepare for their country’s olympic trails.
On day 1 of the meet, Natália de Luccas in the junior 2 category earned the first championship record of the meet, winning the women’s 200m backstroke in a time of 2:14.24, her first 100m was 1:04.97 and her second 100m was 1:09.27. Another outstanding swim on day 1 came from junior 1 swimmer Elder Luna, who dropped 17 seconds and won the 1500m free in 15:42.75.
On day 2, Pan American Champion Brandon Pierry Cruz finished the 400m IM well ahead of the field, touching in a championship record time of 4:17.25.
Junior Worlds semi finalist Pedro Henrique Silva Spajari stole the spotlight on day 3 of the meet, finishing the junior 2 100m freestyle in a championship record time of 48.93, just shy of his lifetime best of 48.87.
The final session of competition Cruz went on to yet another victory in the 200m IM, touching the pads in a time of 2:03.39. He also finished 2nd in the 400m freestyle (3:54.62), behind Luis Altamir Lopes Melo, who finished in a new championship record time of 3:51.78.