This morning, Jack Conger unloaded a 51.95 in the 100 fly to take the top seed by well over a full second at the Texas Senior Circuit Championships, which is hosted by Texas A&M University. Tonight, he dropped a 51.83, the only swimmer to break 53 seconds. Now representing Nation’s Capital Swim Club, Conger was out like a rocket in 24.15, and came home in 27.68 for the win. His 51.64 from January is already the 5th fastest time in the world this year, and tonight he put up the 13th fastest time. Finishing 2nd behind him was Clark Smith in 53.13 (.11 off of a personal best), the only other competitor to come home under 28 seconds, and 3rd was Tripp Cooper (53.41). A classic UT sweep.
Smith won the 200 free earlier in the meet with a lifetime best of 1:49.23, his second time under 1:50 ever. He broke that barrier for the first time in June at the Arena Pro Swim Series in Santa Clara. He finished ahead of Nitro’s Sam Lewis (1:51.13) and Longhorn Aquatics teammate PJ Dunne (1:51.94).
Breeja Larson has already been 1:07.33 in the 100 breast this year, which ranks her 17th in the world, and put down a solid 1:08.39 to win the women’s race by a significant margin. Larson is swimming the 200 breaststroke at the World Championships in August, so this race was just more training for her as she prepares for her big meet of 2015.
On the men’s side, it was Andrew Wilson for the win at 1:02.25, just off of his best time of 1:01.87 which was actually swum earlier this year. He’s representing Longhorn Aquatics this summer (that might help if you look him up in the SWIMS database, seeing as there are about 1,000 Andrew Wilsons), and made a name for himself after breaking the NCAA D3 record in the 100 breast and cracking the nation’s top 10 fastest times ever earlier this year.
Placing 2nd in the B final of the 100 breast with a new Masters World Record for the 55-59 age group was David Guthrie. The 55-year-old, representing Rice Aquatics, broke his own record of 1:09.75 with his 1:08.44 from prelims, and then trimmed it down to 1:08.10 in finals. Before Guthrie swam that 1:09.75, the record was held by Timothy Shead of South Africa at 1:11.13, set in 2008.
OTHER WINNERS:
- W200 free: Sarah Gibson (Aggie Swim Club) | 2:03.22
- W200 back: Claire Brandt (Unattached) | 2:13.12
- Personal best and Olympic Trials Cut
- M200 back: Will Glass (Longhorn Aquatics) | 2:03.74
- W100 fly: Sarah Gibson (Aggie Swim Club) | 1:00.45
- Personal best and Olympic Trials cut
- W400 IM: Bethany Galat (Aggie Swim Club) | 4:48.72
- Personal best by over three seconds and Olympic Trials cut
- M400 IM: Hayden Henry (Tigershark Swim Team) | 4:31.13
He reps NCAP now because his high school coach, Sue Chen, was recently hired there.
Jack Conger is entered at the PVS senior long course championships next week in the 200 free. With also Seliskar, Bayer, Vissering, Hirschberger, Rongione or Gemmell as other big names.
http://www.pvswim.org/1415meet/15-85-psych.pdf
You say he now represents NCAP. Does it mean he trains there during the summer? And if that’s not the case why he doesn’t swim for Texas Longhorns like, I presume, most of the other college swimmers at Texas.
A lot of the UT collegiate swimmers represent their home clubs, but they’re training with Eddie in Austin. Will Licon represents NITRO, Brett Ringgold and Jonathan Roberts, NTN, John Murray, AAAA, to name a few who I believe are also training at UT. Jack may have chosen to represent NCAP for his bio at WUGs and maybe to swim on NCAP relays at Nationals. Just a guess.
Thanks.
100m Fly – A Final
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z222DHgQpAQ&feature=youtu.be
I think his best chance of olympic qualification next year is in the 4X100 free relay.
He will be fast in the 100 fly but I don’t see him beat MP and Shields.
And please don’t call me a “hater”, the word in vogue on swimswam. 🙂
I just try to be the most realistic possible.
Of course it could change. I talk for right now.
And he has never proved so far he can swim his best in a big fight final against the top American swimmers with all the pression.
Perhaps he will do it soon.
He has a chance to do it at US nationals early August. The meet is… Read more »
He has a strong shot in the 4 x100 free.. But I guess it comes down to if phelps swims the 2 fly.. And where he is at with his 2 back (went 1:55 at the previous university games)
Also wonder what his 2 free is like since he swims 100 free, 200 fly and 200 back.. And use to swim the 500 free
He is only going to get faster in this event.
Swimfan, yes, he’s only going to get faster, but it’s one thing to swim fast in season alone well ahead relaxed and it’s another thing to do it with the big names when it counts the most. Conger must prove now he’s clutch as you say in basketball in USA.
I add that at WUGs we haven’t seen the time drop expected in his 100 free individual. He was superb in the relay but was not able to break 49 in individual and even lost the gold That’s why I express some reserves. But hopefully he will soon sweep these reserves.
Conger is a phenomenal swimmer, but he is not a clutch performer on the individual side. His relays swims are without question amazing performances, but he has yet to show that he can get his hand on the wall first when it matters most individually. Perhaps it is mental, perhaps he and Eddie have some kinks to work out when tapering, but until he can sort through what it is that is preventing him from peaking on the highest stages, I hesitate to get excited by anything he does in season. With that said, he certainly has the talent to make the team in Rio. We just need to see these truly remarkable “unrested” times equate to something significantly better… Read more »
STOP SWIMMING BACKSTROKE
I say swim it all in-season and then narrow it down for the taper meets. If he went by that philosophy he would have stuck with backstroke and would have never swam fly because that was his dominate stroke coming out of HS. He’s still young and developing.
He’s 20 and going to be a Jr in college. He’s not young and developing. He’s not an oversized age grouper.
Are you saying that at age 20 a swimmer’s lineup is set for life?
As Mears said, the fact that Conger is now looking like a fly specialist happened because he refused to limit himself to backstroke.
Right. He swam everything as an age grouper and now he’s clearly a butterflyer.
The point is until he hits a wall in the fly/fr events, he doesn’t need to search for or keep the door open for new events.
He’s got a bit of ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ thing going on. He’s not won a National or NCAA title yet. He needs to be top 2 to swim in Rio. It’s a legitimate concern to say that he’s not focused enough on a set program.
After Rio if he wants to switch it up and try backstroke or IM, he’ll have time.
He’s basically 2 training cycles from Trials. No room to try out new… Read more »
Strong swim. Shields may be the odd man out with Conger throwing down non-rested 51’s and the GOAT being back.
Shields just threw down an unrested 51 at LAI I believe
Yes he did. I’m just saying the trajectory that Conger has been on in the 100m fly that by this time next year it’s possible he distances himself from Shields. It will be a tight race.
I wouldn’t say he is totally un-rested. he just got back from South Korea and I don’t think he is capable of a 47 high 100 free split without resting. He may have done some training since his return, but I highly doubt he is training like it is mid-season. Still, it’s a nice time for whatever state of rest he is in.