2022 Kevin B. Perry Senior Meet
- November 3-6, 2022
- La Mirada Splash! Regional Aquatic Center, La Mirada, CA
- SCY (25 yards)
- Prelim/Final format
- Results on MeetMobile
14-year-old Kayla Han, who trains at La Mirada Armada in California, has broken another National Age Group Record. Competing at the La Mirada Armada-hosted 2022 Kevin B. Perry Senior Meet this weekend, Han has been lighting it up in the pool in a number of events.
That came to a head tonight, when the young rising star threw down a stunning 4:06.95 in the women’s 400 IM final, blowing the 13-14 girls NAG away. The previous NAG of 4:08.44 had stood since 2004, and was held by Katie Hoff, whose name is now Katie Anderson. Hoff would go on from that NAG to make her Olympic debut later in 2004 at age 15. She would later set World Records in the 400IM and the 800 free relay and represent Team USA again at the 2008 Olympics.
While it’s proven difficult to track down Hoff’s splits from her NAG performance, we can examine Han’s splits tonight on their own.
Han’s splits:
- Fly – 57.29
- Back – 1:01.51
- Breast – 1:11.82
- Free – 56.33
Perhaps the most impressive split in her race was freestyle, as Han absolutely rocketed home with that 56.33. Her backstroke split was also incredible. 1:01.51 would have been the second-fastest back split in the ‘A’ final of the 400 IM at the 2022 NCAA Championships, behind only NCAA Champion Alex Walsh, who split 59.77 and swam a 3:57.25.
Han’s swim was also incredible in that her personal best heading into today was 4:12.27, marking an improvement of 5.32 seconds today.
The 400 IM was far from Han’s only notable race of the weekend, bearing in mind that she still has one more day of racing left. On the first night of the meet, Han dropped nearly ten seconds in the 1000 free, swimming a 9:41.77. That swim makes Han the #12 performer all-time in the 13-14 girls age group.
Han then went on to swim a blistering 4:39.18 in the 500 free final, taking nearly four seconds off her previous best. With the performance, Han has now risen to #4 all-time in the 13-14 age group. Katie Ledecky’s 13-14 NAG of 4:35.14 may still be a longshot for Han, but it now seems very plausible that she could move into the #2 spot, which is currently held by Claire Weinstein with a 4:38.46.
Han also swam a personal best in the 200 free final tonight, clocking a 1:47.93. That swim marks a personal best by nearly a second. She swam a great race too, splitting 53.19 on the first 100, then coming home in 54.74 on the second 100.
She’ll make the final in ‘24 trials but she has the sandpipers to contend with. Regardless, incredible.
She be moving to Vegas, watch!!
Kayla improving her times in big chunks. An exciting time in her swimming career where she’s setting records and moving closer and closer to the top girls.
Bro what in the world
Kathryn Hazle went 4:07 also!
THATS RIGHT KAYLA, YOU ARE INSANE
Very well could be one of the best college recruits ever. B final worthy times with 4 years to develop.
Hoff seems like a swimmer from a different era – it’s weird that she’s actually younger than Hosszu
Alright this just made me question everything I thought I knew about the nature of reality
she’s WHAT
Makes sense just because Hoff’s career was honestly riddled with enormously bad timing for major international meets- making it difficult to go on after seeming to “fail” each time and thus a very short, though dense, career (the media were horrendous to her in Beijing, though, she really did not do bad at all there, just got duped real bad by all the incredibly random bursts on the scene by other legendary swimmers: Rice, Coventry, Pellegrini, etc, and made Hoff feel like a pile of poo for “only” getting silver and bronzes) as opposed to Hosszu who probably had easy decisions to keep going since she basically never, ever missed for a decade straight on the int’l scene. Hoff’s swims… Read more »