Italian national junior record holder Federico Burdisso and his older brother Alessandro Burdisso have both committed to the Northwestern Wildcats for next fall, according to Northwestern Swimming & Diving’s Instagram page.
FEDERICO BURDISSO
TOP TIMES
- 50m free – 22.97
- 100m free – 49.97
- 200m free – 1:48.95
- 50m fly – 24.24
- 100m fly – 51.73
- 200m fly – 1:55.97
- 200m IM – 2:02.38
Burdisso is the Italian national junior record holder in the 200 fly. This summer, competing at the 2018 European Championships, Burdisso’s 1:55.97 was good for more than a PR and a record — he earned the bronze medal.
Using the Swimulator time converter, his times convert to 45.13 and 1:41.48 in the butterfly races, the latter of which is several seconds faster than the school record and the former nearly a full second quicker. Burdisso is also a great sprint freestyler, converting to a 19.9/43.7/1:35.2, and his 200 IM converts to a 1:45.64.
With those conversions, which will always have to be considered with a grain of salt, Burdisso would’ve been 2nd in the 100 fly and 3rd in the 200 fly at the 2018 Big Ten Championships. He also would’ve found his way to the 2018 NCAA 100 fly A final and 200 fly B final. Note that Northwestern had zero NCAA qualifiers last season, individual, relay or diving.
ALESSANDRO BURDISSO
TOP TIMES
- 50m back – 26.95
- 100m back – 58.91
- 50m fly – 25.31
- 100m fly – 56.09
Alessandro figures as a sprint backstroker and butterflier. His times convert to 22.84/50.33 in back and 22.52/49.19 in fly.
Northwestern, who finished ninth out of ten teams at the 2018 Big Ten Championships and were unable to recruit a single swimmer to their class of 2020 a few years ago (they’ve since had one swimmer transfer in, current junior Colin Murphy), can chalk this up as a monumental win for the program. Federico Burdisso comes in with times that figure him to potentially be the fastest butterflier the program has ever seen, and his IM and sprint free talent should really help elevate their program.
Jeremy Kipp and his coaching staff are already making significant impact as they look to turn around this program in their first season in Evanston.
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NU already has one set of twins (Gridey twins). Ryan Gridley posted the 2nd fastest 18 & under time in the US in the 100 back 55.1 LCM, so the addition of a butterfly swimmer would be great! The coaches must like twins
I’m curious…. Does anyone ever wonder how the foreign kids ( and American) finance their swimming/education at the very costly private universities like Northwestern? Two sons at Northwestern (tuition, room and board etc…) would cost almost $140,000.00 per year. I know Men’s swimming allows about 9.9 full scholarships per year and that money gets divided up among the team. Unless your family is quite wealthy, that’s a lot of money!
Northwestern would be very willing to give both of the brothers full scholarships to get Federico on the team. This is a program-changing pick-up worth 20% of the scholarship funds.
Im sure Federico is on a full ride….
I’m sure they do it similarly to the 20,000 students at Northwestern that aren’t NCAA athletes. Some combination of loans, financial aid, early savings by the parents, etc. 61% of Northwestern undergrads receive financial aid and the school has a $190 million financial aid budget for this year.
Northwestern (and many other schools do similarly) guarantees “100% of all admitted first-year students’ demonstrated financial need for all four years.” They also have a separate program for international aid, and Northwestern financial aid packages don’t include loans.
There’s a reason places like Northwestern and Stanford and USC can make tuition so high – because their graduates tend to do very well financially, so people will ‘pay it.’ The graduates who… Read more »
Twins? I knew that Alessandro was more than one year older ..(Federico born in September 2001, Alessandro in July 2000).
Federico Burdisso is a great talent, with an extremely competitive and ambitious approach every race he swims.
The 200 fly is the best example: first half very fast and no fear to struggle in the last 50 metres.
Still in great evolution (he improved a lot his 200 free and 200 im PBs at Italian Champs last August after the Euro Champs), he’s definitely an important addition for the whole Ncaa and a massive one for Northwestern.
Whaaaaaaat? That’s huge for them. Northwestern starting to make a comeback!
Somehow that 200 fly conversion, while not the same type of error, seems a little on the conservative side. There seem to be a lot more guys who can go 1:41.4 than 1:55.9.
Looking at the world rankings last year, the 2 guys with yards times closest to Burdisso in the 200 fly were Jack Levant and Trenton Julian. Levant was 1:55.9 LCM, 1:44.5 SCY. Julian was 1:56.2 LCM and 1:40.63. 1:41.4 seems reasonable.
Think you messed the 200 free conversion up, 1:48 is way way better than 1:39
Fixed