Hunter Armstrong Beats Zach Harting in 50 Back Time Trial – But It Was Close

With Winter Juniors closing and the World Short Course Championships now just hours away, we shift our focus to Melbourne, Australia, where Team USA, among others, are taking in final preparations at the Melbourne Sports Centres pool.

The most significant of those preparations was the challenge thrown down by team USA’s last addition to the roster, 200 butterflier Zach Harting.

When Harting was added to the team after USA Swimming identified an error with their entry of Carson Foster in the 200 fly (he had not hit the qualifying time in an eligible qualifying meet), USA Swimming staff expressed excitement because Harting adds a lot of flavor and flair to any team he’s on.

When Harting challenged Hunter Armstrong to a showoff in the 50 backstroke, it seemed like a longshot. Armstrong is the World Record holder in the 50 back in long course. While Hunter is not a great short course swimmer (he declared his distaste for it when turning pro with eligibility remaining at Ohio State), Harting has no discernible backstroke history. His 100 yard best is a 55.85 from 2012, and his 100 long course meter best is a 1:07.64 from 2013.

Add to that Harting’s specialty in the 200 meter butterfly, specifically, and the challenge seemed more like an antic than a serious conversation.

But when the race happened, Harting actually led for part of the swim, and was out-touched by Armstrong by maybe a tenth of a second. The equalizer of underwater kicking.

My watch got about a 23.6 for Armstrong and about a 23.7 for Harting. For reference, it took a 22.66 to win the 50 back at last year’s Short Course World Championships and 22.90 to land on the podium (though a lot of the finalists from that race won’t swim it this year). 23.63 made the semi-finals and 23.26 made the final.

Instagram fans voted that the loser of the race would have to sing a karaoke song of the winner’s choosing, so hopefully there’s more video when that happens. While there was a ‘funishment’ for the loser, there are often whispers about these sort of pre-meet time trials to give coaches information about relay legs at meets like this. Remember that Short Course Worlds, unlike the long course edition or the Olympic Games, has a 200 medley relay. Shaine Casas swam the backstroke leg last year for the Americans, splitting 23.11 as they tied with Russia for gold.

Casas is on the roster again this year, and is probably the 2nd-best option for the U.S. after Ryan Murphy in a 50 backstroke, but he’s not swimming the 100 back at the meet.

The US has a lot of versatile swimmers on this roster, giving them some medley options, but the finals relay will likely be Murphy on backstroke, Nic Fink on breaststroke, Casas on fly, and Andrew on freestyle. But that still leaves some prelims slots open to be decided, because of the number of duplicates there – for example, Michael Andrew is also on the team as a breaststroker and butterflier, and it’s unlikely that Team USA will use him in prelims, presuming he’s in-form at the meet.

So that means swims like this can be valuable to help coaches decide on who will take those prelims legs.

Racing begins on Tuesday morning Melbourne time, which is Monday evening in the US.