Kevin “Patrick” Callan has seen tremendous improvement over the last four months. The high school junior from Oklahoma entered the 2016 Winter Juniors West meet as the 14th seed and trimmed off nearly three seconds to take 3rd at 1:35.62. This weekend he carved just over 1.5 more seconds, erasing Jacob Molacek’s Region VIII Record at the Mizzou Sectional with 1:34.06. That time lowered over 2.5 seconds from the 2014 mark and would have been enough to land him in the B-final at the 2016 NCAA Division 1 Championships.
Patrick took time to tell SwimSwam about the race and what he did differently this season to prepare for it.
Other highlight for Patrick: beating an Olympic gold medalist.
The amount of high school kids going sub-1:35 these days is amazing. Callan 134.0; Kibler 133.4 at 16; Walker 133.7 at 15 (!); If you expand it up to the college freshman/sophomores (Haas 1:30; Farris 1:31; Craig 1:31; Rooney; 1:32.0;Seliskar 1:32-low splits); plus Shoults (1:33 last year in HS), and I’m sure I’m forgetting others . . . we are experiencing an explosion of the 200 free.
I’m old enough to remember when Biondi’s 1:33.03 from 1987 seemed untouchable. That won’t even get you into big finals at NCAAs anymore. Future is bright for Team USA’s 800 FR!
Cody bybee 1:34
Race pace 50s on short rest are extremely effective training for the 200. You have to train at race speed.
He’s a great kid, from a great family. I’ve enjoyed seeing him grow up and get faster.
ATTA BOY, PATTY!