Gabe Castaño Ties FINA ‘A’ Cut With 22.01 50 Meter Free in Mission Viejo

2021 FRAN CRIPPEN SWIM MEET OF CHAMPIONS

• June 24-27,2021
• Marguerite Aquatic Center, Mission Viejo, CA
• Long Course Meters (50 Meters)
• Prelims @9am / Finals @4pm PST
• Results on MM: “2021 CA Dolfin Fran Crippen SMOC PRO”

Penn State’s Gabe Castaño broke his Mexican National Record in the 50 free for a second time in two days on Sunday in Mission Viejo.

Castaño broke his record with a time of 22.06 on Saturday and posted a 22.01 during a time trial on Sunday to tie the FINA ‘A’ cut. This means Castaño is now eligible to represent Mexico in this event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

He swam the event four times over the weekend, inching closer the the ‘A’ cut with each swim:

• Prelims – 22.20
• Semifinals – 22.12
• Finals – 22.06
• Time trial – 22.01

His record-setting swim won the final on Saturday:

This is the third Mexican National Record to fall during the Fran Crippen Swim Meet of Champions. On Friday, Cal’s Andy Xianyang Song won the 50 backstroke with a record-setting time of 25.85 and Aggie Swim Club’s Héctor Ruvalcaba Cruz broke the National Record in the 200 fly with a time of 1:56.89. Cruz came within .41 of the FINA ‘A’ cut.

Virginia Tech’s Youssef Ramadan also broke a FINA ‘A’ cut time on Sunday in the 100 fly, making him eligible to represent Egypt at the 2020 Olympics. You can read more about his swim here

During prelims, Schroeder YMCA’s Ziyad Saleem posted the fastest time in the men’s 100 back: 55.89. This time would rank him #65 out of the all-time fastest 17-18 year-olds in the event, but his lifetime best time, 55.54 from November 2020, already ranks him #39 on that list.

In the same session, 17-year-old Mia Kragh of Rancho San Dieguito swam a 59.88 to win the 100 fly this morning, ranking her #63 out of the all-time fastest 17-18 year-olds in the event in the county. She posted a 59.19 in finals to drop a total of .92 seconds from her lifetime best time going into this meet from early June.

The results for the majority of Sunday finals events were not available at the time of publishing. Those results will be added as soon as they are published.

Other Event Winners and Notable Swims

• Distance specialist and Masters swimmer Heidi George claimed 1st place in the women’s 800 free with a time of 9:11.47, out touching second place finisher Elena Gingras of Lake Oswego Swim Club by about 5 seconds. George had placed 4th in the 1500 free on Thursday.
• The men’s 800 free was a relatively close race with Austin Swim Club’s Truman Armstrong touching the wall 1st (8:29.69), Team Rebel Aquatics’ Cameron Castro 2nd (8:30.51) and 16-year-old Skyler Kao of Fullerton Aquatics 3rd (8:32.07). Armstrong’s next fastest 800 free time in the USA Swimming database is a 9:23.89 from 2017. This was also a new lifetime best time for Castro who took about 4 seconds off his previous best from 2018. Kao took 8 seconds off his lifetime best time from May.