Swimming news – 200 Yard Back 13-14 NAG Record Reported by Braden Keith
Michael Andrew, Indie Swimming, #USRPT (courtesy of Mike Lewis, olavistaphotography.com)
The clock to Michael Andrew‘s 15th birthday continues to tick, but the Indie Swimming record-breaker is making the most of his last few days.
Andrew re-broke the 13-14 National Age Group record in the 200 yard back, taking nearly another full second off the mark in finals after first breaking his own mark in prelims. He went 1:43.15, meaning he’s smashed almost two seconds off the record in the course of one day – the old record stood at 1:45.14 from March of this year.
Here’s a quick splits comparison between Andrew’s prelims and finals swims:
Prelims: 24.27/26.35/27.03/26.37 = 1:44.02
Finals: 23.81/25.72/26.82/26.80 = 1:43.15
It appears that after finishing his morning swim with a great final 50, Team Indie decided to go after the front half of the race more at night, something that turned out very well for Andrew & Company.
Though he’s still quite a ways off the very-fast 15-16 NAG of 1:40.90 in the event from NCAA champion Ryan Murphy, Andrew has cut off just about half the distance between him and that record in one single weekend, and has yet to officially turn 15 (that happens Friday).
The backstroke time conversions are especially ridiculous between all courses. You’d have a 46.0 convert to a 52.2 in long course!! The other ones are a little more reliable but in reality it all comes down to what you actually swim and how you perform in short and long course.
True, PVK, but I suppose the converter is useful mainly to two groups – 1) those who only swim yards (age groupers mainly) and would like to know where they (roughly) stand in comparison to their contemporaries abroad, and also to 2) those abroad (as no one else swims in yards) who would again like to have a rough idea of where they stand in comparison to their competitors in America during the US’s short course season. That the converter is ‘not fit for purpose’ defeats the whole object of the exercise IMHO.
Stunning times. He set a few records at our Sectional here at Jenks. I was hoping he’d hurry up and turn 15 before he swam in another scy meet, so that his fastest records would have been completed in our pool. 50 free, 200 back, 100 breast. Turns out, we were just a quick rest stop on the road… His times will remain pool records for a while, I’d imagine (until he comes back again).
I half-seriously proposed a long-course meet here just before his birthday to his mom when they were leaving the building. They were really interested, but we didn’t set it up. His birthday is just a few weeks short of when LCM meets start: it would… Read more »
It’s been a blast watching his rampage the past few months. Think about the LSC records he set here for MV. His NAGs will get broken, and eventually someone in our section will break his pool records, but I have a feeling his LSC records will stand for a long, long time.
Great race and huge NAG record at the end!
His backstroke looks much smoother than only a few weeks ago.
Great swim, and very fast indeed, but the swim highlights how skewed the converter on here is for back. It makes this equivalent to a 1:56.89 LC! 7th fastest in the world this year above Vyatchanin. A more reliable converter pegs this at a 1:58. Still phenomenal whichever way you look at it, but more in tune with real raw data.
Well done MA on a great time.
No way he swims now 1.56 or even 1.58 in long course!
These time converters from yards to long course are a joke!
From SCY to SCM or from SCM to SCY ok.
The rest is ridiculous.
I predict Mr Andrew will swim 2.01.20 next summer.
But if he breaks the 2 minutes barrier, I will be very happy. 🙂
…I know. If you know LC times, you just realise how whacky the back conversions are. If you look at the 100s, a 47.0 LC gets you into the Senior Nationals, but, wait for it… Yes, that converts into a 50…SCY. Yep.
It is such a shame that the converter on the site is such poor quality (at least for backstroke), because near enough everything else is top notch.
I suppose those who know, know, but for those who don’t, I think they will just continue to be misled. Shame.
*57.0* (not 47)
At first I didn’t believe what you said, and so I tried it for myself, and converted the 1:43.15 into LCM and I got 1:56.89 and I burst into laughter.
And I totally agree with everything Bobo said above.
…I know. The worst thing is that SwimSwam seems to stand by it. I pointed out the fact there was something terribly wrong with it 6-12 months ago, but as no corrections have been made, I can only assume they think it is “useful” as it is…
download my swimming converter instead! let me know what you think
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/swimming-converter/id534942193?mt=8