Tom Shields of Cal after his final collegiate races at the 2013 Men’s NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships.
The 200 Fly as reported by the Machine, Braden Keith:
Tom Shields looked a little fatigued by the end of day 2 of this meet; on Saturday evening, though, there were no such signs, as he swam a 1:39.65 in this 200 fly. That broke his own NCAA Record of 1:40.31, and tied the Michael Phelps as the fastest ever in this race.
Shields opened this race up in 48.0, and only seemed to accelerate in his last two 50′s (though he virtually dead-split numbers 2, 3, and 4.) Florida’s Marcin Cieslak had a great back-half too, but even that couldn’t get him any closer than a second to Shields. He finished in 1:40.62 – just .02 seconds away from Mark Dylla’s 2011 Championship Record.
Cieslak will enter next year as a favorite in this race. That swim makes him the 4th-best in history (and 3rd-best as a college swimmer). He won’t go unchallenged, however, as Michigan freshman Dylan Bosch was 3rd in 1:41.37 and his fellow Florida junior Sebastien Rousseau was 4th in 1:42.20. That time by Bosch is the second-fastest ever by a freshman, behind only last year’s champion Will Hamilton. Hamilton was 11th this year in 1:44.01.
North Carolina’s Tom Luchsinger was 5th in 1:42.95; the Tar Heels 200 butterfliers, both male and female, had a great season.
The 3rd Florida A-finalist Cameron Martin was 6th in 1:43.35, followed by Wisconsin’s Daniel Lester in 1:43.60, and Michigan’s Kyle Whitaker in 1:43.84.
Lester becomes the third A-finalist of the meet for the Badgers. This is a team with a lot of great individual swimmers; their next quest (with both Lester and Michael Weiss graduating) is to reproduce that with more relay-oriented sprinters. That would allow them to really break into the next tier of team scoring.
After that race, even with Bosch falling two spots from prelims and Whitaker getting last in the A-Final, the Wolverine lead was over 50 points. With neither they, nor Cal, having divers, that meant even a 400 free relay DQ couldn’t derail the Wolverines from their 12th team championship.
That was a really good interview
Tom has been a joy to watch. This interview speaks a lot to his and the team’s character. Go Bears!