2025 PRO SWIM SERIES — WESTMONT
- Westmont, IL — FMC Natatorium
- March 5-8, 2025
- LCM (50 Meters)
- Meet Central
- SwimSwam Event Page
- Start Times: prelims – 9:00 am CT/ finals – 6:00 pm CT
- Weds. Timed Finals: 5:00 pm CT
- How to Watch
- Pre-Scratch Psych Sheet (updated 3/3)
- Live Results or through MeetMobile “2025 TYR Pro Swim Series – Westmont”
- Prelims Live Recap: Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
- Finals Live Recap: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
Sam Short broke the Pro Swim Series record in the 800 free on the final night of the 2025 Pro Swim Series – Westmont (7:45.02). The previous record was set by Ahmed Hafnaoui in 2023.
With that swim, Short took over the #1 time in the season so far, surpassing 2024 Olympic champion Daniel Wiffen‘s time (7:52.52) from the BUCS Long Course Championships back in February. Short is the first man to dip under 7:50 in the 2024-25 season. He almost led the race from start to finish sans the first 50; Brazil’s Guilherme Costa flipped slightly ahead (26.55) of Short (26.62). Short continued to build his lead throughout the race, eventually finishing over 10 seconds ahead of Costa.
2024-2025 LCM Men 800 Free
Short
7:45.02
| 2 | Kuzey Tuncelli | TUR | 7:47.46 | 03/07 |
| 3 | Kim Woo-min | KOR | 7:50.57 | 03/25 |
| 3 | Carlos GARACH BENITO | ESP | 7:50.57 | 03/09 |
| 5 | Lukas Märtens | GER | 7:50.61 | 02/15 |
This is Short’s first return to racing since the 2024 Olympic Games, where he finished 9th in the 800 free despite coming in as the top seed. He also missed out on individual medals in the 400 and 1500 free. He then took a couple of months off to rehab his shoulder. He won the 400 free earlier this meet, which also stands as the #1 time in the season so far (3:44.83).
Originally reported by Madeline Folsom.
MEN’S 800 Freestyle — Finals
- World Record: 7:32.12 — Lin Zhang, China (2009)
- World Jr. Record : 7:43.37 — Lorenzo Galossi, Italy (2022)
- American: 7:38.67 — Bobby Finke, United States (2023)
- U.S. Open: 7:40.34 — Bobby Finke, United States (2023)
Pro Swim: 7:48.50 — Ahmed Ayoub Hafnaoui, Tunisia (2023)
Top 8 Finishers:
- Samuel Short (AUS)- 7:45.02 **New Pro Swim Record**
- Guilherme Costa (SESC)- 7:56.45
- Ryan Erisman (LAKR)- 7:58.97
- Luka Mijatovic (PLS)- 7:59.09
- Alec Enyeart (TST)- 8:03.64
- Stephan de Freitas Steverink (FRJ)- 8:04.35
- Ilia Sibirtsev (UZB)- 8:09.66
- Sean Atkinson (UN)- 8:12.73
Sam Short finished his first meet back after the Olympics with a bang, setting a new Pro Swim Series record in the men’s 800 freestyle. His final time of 7:45.02 was more than three seconds under Ahmed Hafnaoui’s record of 7:48.50 from 2023. It was also more than a second-and-a-half faster than the 7:46.83 he went at last summer’s Olympic Games where he went 7:46.83 to finish one spot out of the final at 9th.
Short got out fast and stayed there, finishing more than 11 seconds ahead of 2nd place finisher Guilherme Costa’s 7:56.45 in 2nd. This time was also about 11 seconds off Costa’s best time of 7:45.48 which he went in June of 2022.
Ryan Erisman finished 3rd from the early heats, swimming 7:58.97 for a new best time by almost three seconds. This was also his first time under 8:00 in the event, improving from the 8:01.65 he went in July 2024
16th place finisher Jon Joentvedt went for a 400 split, coming in at 3:53.91 in his first 400. He did not swim the event this week.
Were the Aussies in USA for a training camp? Where?
Pallister is in flagstaff per her Instagram
They’re all heading up to Flagstaff (about 15 of them in total) but 5 went early and swam Westmont, the rest are in the air between Australia and USA now and will join up with those 5 for 3 weeks in Flagstaff. Following altitude camp, a few of the Openwater Aussies that are also in Flagstaff will go down to Florida for the US Openwater Nationals before flying home.
So who are the other 10? And do you know if Pallister has switched to St Peters? 🧐🧐🧐
Openwater – Kyle Lee, Tommy Raymond, Nick Sloman, Bailey Armstrong, Madi Gough and JDM I think.
Pool – Max G, Sammy Short, Tommy Neill, ZSC, Lani Pallister, Leah Neale, Tiana Kritzinger, Lily Price and hoping I haven’t insulted anyone by forgetting the entire list 🤞.
Solid group of athletes, hope the pasta is stocked on the supermarket shelves over there lol.
Nice! Any idea if there’ll be a larger group at the next PSS meet?
No idea about next PSS meet entries.
Sorry forgot to answer your other question, no I don’t think Pallister has switched, Janelle is on the coaching staff over there so I guess that is for ZSC and Lani from Griffith.
Why I ask is she’s showing as SPW at results central.
Maybe Braden can reach out?
🤔 certainly that makes me think also, haven’t heard anything though.
Can’t wait to see him race some more soon hopefully
Feb 7th in Halle:
Florian Wellbrock 7:52,64
Oliver Klement 7:54,59
Feb 16th in Braunschweig:
Lukas Maertens 7:50,61
Sam short and Elijah
Feb 7th in Halle:
Florian Wellbrock 7:52,64
Oliver Klement 7:54,59
Feb 16th in Braunschweig:
Lukas Martens 7:50,61
2 weeks of altitude training, a week of recovery and then the next PSS… could we have some US Open records incoming?
Heard he’s a big portillos fan
Who isn’t?
Gabbi Seccombe lol
its kinda interesting how small the rackley training group is compared to the other major training groups in australia, particularly given theyve been pretty successful with sam and meg having major international breakouts…
it seems like after paris and the departure of many olympic level aussie coaches, only leah neales since joined the group.
Leah Neale joined before Paris. There is a lot of attention given to Dean Boxall – who is obviously fantastic – but Damien (& even his swimmers) are very low-key so dont tend to draw the same interest. There are also a lot of younger up & comers there, just not part of the “official” performance crew I believe. Definitely not a small crew.
yeah mollie and arnie have obvi been standouts with dean but otherwise i feel like the track records between spw and rackley are actually pretty comparable?
sam had a bigger breakout in 2023 than elijah did in 2022 (and sam appears to be tracking for a rebound this year), an injured tommy (and ill put max in this camp since they appear to train together sometimes) outdueled the spw guys at trials, and meg had a more successful olympics than shayna
i only bring it up bc usually after successful international results, theres notable migration toward a program — which i would have expected more of after all the post paris coaching departures in australia. instead it seems… Read more »
Max is definitely NOT training with Sam, Tommy and the Rackley crew. Max trains TSS on the Gold Coast under Richard Scarce.
The SPW crew is littered with Aussie Dolphins and has been that way for years, with more than 1/4 (closer to 1/2) of the Australian National swim team training there. No other club team domestically has been close to SPW in the points system for years at top level domestic meets.
im aware — but wasnt richard formerly under the rackley umbrella at miami? it seems like those two training groups are still close since theyre both in flagstaff atm
i dont think theres any denying that spw has had a lot of success — but is it a good idea for swimming australia to be concentrating all its eggs in a singular basket like that?
just conjecture but i cant imagine youre getting very much personalized attention in an environment like that. only bringing that up bc theres been a couple notable swimmers who achieved breakouts after leaving spw — meg and ella in particular
the strength of usa swimming has always been the diversity of its training… Read more »
Yes Richard was at Miami for a stint, not sure how close the TSS crew are to Rackley now, but I suspect Max and Bailey were included in Flagstaff camp well before the move to TSS so not sure how influenced their inclusion to Flagstaff was by Miami Rackley or Richard personally. The fact that Lachlan Walker is not in Flagstaff but trains with Max and Bailey at TSS now, indicates the inclusion to Flagstaff was more influenced by Miami Rackley and not Richard personally in my opinion.
Can’t comment on the personalised attention that SPW athletes receive and I am not sure that Swimming Australia has much say in where an athlete wants to train. Lots of large elite… Read more »
Meg is an odd example to use here. She was 19 when she left and on a solid upward trajectory. She stalled for 3 years in the 100 free before setting a new PB in 2024, her 200 PB is still from when she was at SPW, and her 50 got slightly better the year after she left but she didn’t swim an internationally relevant time until 2024.
I am almost certain that Meg would be even better if she had just stayed at SPW.
But in any event, the strength of USA is its population and money, not its diversity in training. Australia and USA both won 5 individual golds in Paris, coming from 3 different training groups. Massive… Read more »
I think you are right, but so is Cassandra; only, diversity of training groups is a strength that Australia also has (and probably so does China) but it’s fairly restricted to these two (or three with China) countries. If you look at how many training groups produced medals, it’s a much more diverse picture.
I see what you’re saying, but I just don’t think the number of training groups is a factor, it’s more just a symptom of the other factors.
USA has 13x the population of Australia, so naturally needs significantly more training groups to accommodate all the swimmers. NCAAs also naturally creates a bigger range of training groups.
I think (I’m not super knowledgeable on exactly where everyone trains and when so forgive me if my numbers are wrong) Australia had 8 individual medalists representing 6 training groups, and USA had 13 individual medalists representing 9 training groups. That doesn’t exactly scream that the number of training groups is a key factor, more just that USA had more medallists and therefore naturally… Read more »
That makes sense, but I feel like both can be true at the same time? Yes, a high number of training groups is needed for a high number of swimmers, and the resources the US has makes it possible that most of them are high quality, but since there are a lot of programs, they are going to be diverse either way, which is a strength in itself.
And of course, I don’t have to tell you that Australia punches above its weight class in the quality of its programs in swimming (6 training groups bringing home medals is pretty insane for a country that size).
Didn’t Meg win bronze in the 50 free at Worlds in 2022?
That is probably a relevant time.
Ok fair point. I did overlook that. But in fairness, that was a slow race. Her time to win that medal would have come last in the Paris final and was the slowest time to medal at worlds since 2011.
Even so, it was less than a 0.2 improvement from her best time at SPW where she was on a clear improvement trajectory anyway
i dont disagree! in fact i think the diversity of training groups has been a strength for australian swimming — but in the aftermath of some top coaching departures, thats changing and it feels like theres been a bit too much consolidation. id bet in singapore that ratio of medals to training groups is going to increase significantly compared to the us.
my point is more so from an organizational strategy pov you typically dont want to have single points of failure (no matter how good those single points are in the case of dean). when the group is on, theyre on — like in fukuoka. but when theyre off, thats a scary number of swimmers to be off…… Read more »
I agree that more training groups with more stars would be nice! I just think it naturally stays smaller because we have fewer stars and fewer swimmers overall.
I don’t Swimming Australia can really control that though. They don’t really have much direct control over where swimmers choose to swim.
I think there is a bit of outside issues to explain SPW in Paris. Sickness spread throughout the team and hit Jack and Taylor pretty hard.
Of the 12 podium positions for the 200-400 free, 10 of them added time in Paris. Only two medallists swam their best time of the year in Paris. Then look at the extremely slow winning times in a huge number of events. Seems… Read more »
Not sure that I would say Meg was plateauing in 2023. She split a 52.29 in the 4×100 Free at Fukuoka compared to 53.00 the year before at Budapest and 53.09 in the 4×100 at Tokyo. But fair to say 2022 she was plateauing.