Purdue’s 3rd Seed, Only Male NCAA Qualifier To Forgo Championships

With the official psych sheets just having been released for the 2016 NCAA Division I Men’s Championships, swim enthusiasts everywhere are looking for their favorite swimmers and matching up prime time showdowns. One name folks won’t find, however, is Purdue University’s Marat Amaltdinov.

Although originally listed on the pre-cut sheets having earned the Big Ten title in the 200 yard breaststroke last month, Almaltdinov  is opting out of the NCAA Championships meet in order to return to his home country of Russia and prepare for his nation’s Olympic Trials scheduled to begin April 19th.

This move is a game-changer, as the Purdue sophomore was the 2016 Big Ten Champion in the event. He holds the NCAA’s 3rd-ranked 200 breaststroke (1:52.67) and could have also competed in the 100 breaststroke, where he holds a 43rd-ranked time of 53.18. Amaltdinov’s absence bumped Indiana’s Cody Taylor to the 3rd seed behind leader Will Licon (Texas) and Josh Prenot (California).

This year marked the 2nd in a row that Amaltdinov had qualified individually for the NCAA Championships, having also earned a bid last year in the 200 breaststroke.

According to Purdue Head Coach Dan Ross, “Marat and I met extensively after the World University Games, and again this fall when he returned to campus. The original plan was to redshirt him this season but that wasn’t an option due to his age (2/22/1994 date of birth).”

Ross said, “So we decided to have him help the team in as many meets as possible this year. We skipped the Big Ten Triple Duals at the end of January to train and then rested about half as much as what he normally would have for Big Tens. Since the meet was at home we felt that advantage would help compensate for the difference in rest.”

“We were very fortunate to have won the 200 breast; he was very happy to win it for Purdue and his teammates. But even though he is seeded third going into NCAAs, we are forgoing the meet to train and rest for the Russian Olympic Trials in April. I promised his Russian coaches we would do everything in our power to have him at peak performance in Moscow in April, thus this decision. After this season hopefully he has two more full years to represent Purdue at NCAAs and win a couple NCAA championships.”

Headed into his nation’s Trials, Amaltdinov has been ranked as high as 3rd in Russia in the 200m breaststroke and just missed a 2012 Olympic berth by .7 of a second.

Although 6 swimmers on the Women’s swimming team at Purdue have qualified for NCAA Championships, Amaltdinov was the sole swimmer on the men’s side to have earned a bid. As such, the Boilermaker men’s swimming and diving program will be looking to divers Joe Cifelli and Max Showalter to earn the only male tickets to the big meet.