Florida High School State Champion Hayden Kwan Commits to Stanford

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Hayden Kwan, one of the top remaining uncommitted boys in the high school class of 2021, has announced his commitment to Stanford University. Kwan is a rising senior at Lawton Chiles High School in Tallahassee, Florida and trains with United Swim Club.

Kwan was the 2019 Florida High School 3A State Champion in the 100 yard backstroke. A month later, he qualified for the A-finals and placed 8th at the Winter Junior Championships – East meet in Atlanta.

Best Times in Yards:

• 200 IM – 1:48.41
• 100 back – 48.46
• 200 back – 1:45.98
• 100 fly – 48.31

After Stanford head coach Dan Schemmel was hired in May of 2019, he was able to cement a very strong late-breaking class of 2020 for the Cardinal that includes swimmers like World Championship medalist Andrei Minakov, Ethan Dang, Jonathan Affeld, Aaron Sequeira, Ethan Hu, Luke Maurer, Preston Forst, and Rick Mihm that SwimSwam’s Jared Anderson ranks as the 2nd-best in the country.

So far, the Cardinal’s class of 2021 is made up of only two swimmers: Kwan and Gabe Machado, who committed within the last month as well.

There are still 2 swimmers from SwimSwam’s top 20 in the class available, #10 Matthew Fenlon and #13 Hayden Zheng. As we’ve seen with the late commitments for the Stanford women in the last few weeks, including Torri Huske, it’s probable that those swimmers have already made their decisions and are awaiting admissions decisions from top-tier academic schools to make an announcement. Those would be Stanford’s last two chances to get in to the top 20 with this class. It doesn’t come as a huge surprise that this class is smaller for the Stanford men, given all of the firepower they’re bringing in this fall.

Kwan will help shore-up an area of weakness for Stanford last season in the backstrokes. The Cardinal only had 1 swimmer, Benjamin Ho, go faster than 48 seconds last season, and their top 3 swimmers from last year in the 100 back will all be gone before Kwan arrives. Of that powerful class of 2020, only 1, Aaron Sequeira (46.7/1:44.1) is a backstroker. Machado, the other 2021 commit, is also a good backstroker, with bests of 49.6 and 1:45.2, though he projects to be more of a 200 backstroker/IMer/distance freestyler type than a 100 backstroker.

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