Márton Barta, a Hungarian national who was an exchange student last year at Brookwood High School in Snellville, Georgia, has verbally committed to swim for University of Notre Dame beginning in the fall of 2018.
“Notre Dame is among the highest ranked business schools in the world. It combines high-class excellence with outstanding swimming environment. The professionalism of the swim team, their enthusiastic, progressive and committed communication, the elaborated vision and strategy of the future plans have left me no doubt about my decision. I feel very honoured to be part of the Notre Dame family. It is my ambition for many years to study business management, and I cannot express how happy I am to be able to combine my intellectual goal with the best sports activity, swimming. Go Irish!”
Barta was the 2016 GHSA 6A State Swimming & Diving Meet champion in the 200y IM (1:48.63) and runner-up in the 100y breast (56.78). He also split a 25.94 50y breast on Brookwood’s 200 medley relay and led off their 400 free relay (46.01), which broke the Georgia state record. Swimming for SwimAtlanta at the Atlanta Classic Swim Meet in May 2016, Barta came in 3rd behind soon-to-be Olympians Jay Litherland and Josh Prenot in the 400m IM (4:19.47) and was runner-up to Prenot in the 200 IM (2:03.80).
Back home in Hungary, Barta swims for Szombathelyi Vízmű SC. He was the silver medalist in both the 200m IM and 400m IM at the 43rd Arena European Junior Swimming Championships this summer in Hódmezővásárhely. He set a Hungarian national age group record in the former with 2.01.13. The previous summer he won the 400m IM at the European Youth Olympic Festival, in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Barta’s top times, so far, include:
| SCY | LCM | |
| 200 IM | 1:48.63 | 2:01.13 |
| 400 IM | 3:52.54 | 4:18.51 |
| 100 free | 46.01 | 52.16 |
| 200 free | 1:40.73 | 1:53.93 |
| 400 free | — | 3:57.29 |
| 100 fly | 50.40 | 56.00 |
| 200 fly | 1:50.24 | 2:03.17 |
Although he has another year left in high school, Barta told SwimSwam, “I know that made pretty quick my decision, but I believe that I could not find better place to swim and study.”
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email to [email protected]
Nice pickup for ND. Go Irish!
Is Joe Flacco elite?
This is great for ND…. But shouldn’t they focus on 2017 first? They have no commitment for this year’s class..
https://staging.swimswam.com/ncaps-will-cumberland-verbally-commits-notre-dame-fighting-irish/
Ah thank you! These two will make a very nice 4x 400 IM relay in the future 🙂