King Aquatic Club 12-year old Ethan Dang, standing only 5’4″ or 5’5″ by his coaches’ estimation, placed 8th in the A-final of the men’s 100 breaststroke on Saturday at the Husky Invitational, and his 58.36 was good enough to break his own National Age Group Record of 58.53 (set in the morning).
Not only did Dang break one record with that swim, he got two records. His 27.20 split to 50 yards broke the record set by Michael Andrew in 2012 at 27.46
The comparative splits between Dang’s prelims and finals swims:
- Dang in prelims: 27.53/31.00 = 58.53
- Dang in finals: 27.20/31.16 = 58.36
Dang charged hard to get that 50 yard record, and it only cost him a tenth on the back-half for his efforts, resulting in the new record.
Now he’ll have a chance on Sunday to do the almost unthinkable – if he can improve his lifetime best in the 200 yard breaststroke from a 2:09.37 to a 2:05.89, he would qualify for the Winter Junior National Championships that begin on Wednesday in this same pool, his home pool, and geographic fortune would give him the opportunity to swim at that meet as a 12-year old – an incredibly rare feat. While dropping 3.5 seconds seems like a tall order, take note that he dropped 1.99 in the 100 breaststroke, so 3.5 over twice the distance seems doable (though still challenging).
Coming into today, the National Age Group Record in the 100 yard race was a 59.90 belonging to Penn Charter’s Reece Whitley.
I really thought Whitley’s record would stand the test of time! It just goes to show height is not always the most important thing in a swimmer; I don’t know how tall Whitley was at 12, but since he was a skyscraper at 14, I doubt he was only 5’5″ at 12. Congrat’s Ethan!
Whitley was 6’2″ at 12, now he is 6’5″. So definitely Dang has better technique, because he is only 5’5″, amazing!
What a meet for Mr Dang!
WOW!
Now crush the 200 breast NAG record to finish the job.
Wow. So quick.
Again. What????