2020 U.S. OPEN
- Thursday, November 12 – Saturday, November 14
- Greensboro, NC
- Long course meters (LCM)
- Timed Finals
- Where To Watch US National Team Members
- Meet Central
- Greensboro Psych Sheets
- Thursday Night Results
In the women’s 800 free tonight in Greensboro, open water and distance specialist Ashley Twichell of TAC Titans was dominant in a field of collegiate and club swimmers.
Winning by a huge margin, Twichell clocked an 8:33.58 for the win, coming in off of her 8:25.31 lifetime best and her 8:29.45 from this meet last year. In a post-race interview on the USA Swimming live stream, she said it was her first long course swim since last December, and she was out of the pool for “10-12 weeks” at the beginning of the pandemic.
UVA commit Caroline Pennington dropped over five seconds for just her second outing under 8:50, going 8:44.45 to take second place. Pennington, who is from Connecticut and switched to the TAC Titans in North Carolina around the beginning of the pandemic, has been dropping a lot of time the last two seasons. She only broke 9:00 for the first time in 2019, and since summer of 2019, she’s dropped down to an 8:49.83 at a TAC Titans intrasquad in October and now 8:44.45.
Pennington’s time today is an Olympic Trials qualifying cut, which is her first OT cut after narrowly missing the 1500 free cut by less than a second in her 16:49.67 lifetime best in October. That swim was done at the same meet as her old 800 free best, and she’ll be racing the 1500 later this weekend with a shot to get that cut.
Virginia Tech freshman Chase Travis finished close behind Pennington for third at 8:46.76, off of her 8:30.76 lifetime best. NC State commit Emma Hastings of East Carolina Aquatics broke nine minutes for the first time ever, taking fourth in 8:54.08.
On the men’s side, NC State sophomore Ross Dant picked up a win in the 800 free. He clocked an 8:07.13, though he’s been as fast as 7:56.03 in his career. That said, it was Dant’s fifth-best outing ever.
Second went to Dylan Porges, a Princeton sophomore swimming unattached at this meet, at 8:12.42. NC State commit Lance Norris of TAC Titans clocked an 8:15.46 to take third. Porges went his first lifetime best in this race since 2018, taking over two seconds off his old bet, while Norris sliced off almost three seconds from his old best.
Crazy improvements by Pennington she keeps getting better and better.
Pennington lived in CT but trained at Badger in NY. Multiple Olympians have come out of John Collins’ Badger program. Caroline has swum less than a year with TAC and if she was in the same situation as Twitchel, that includes 10-12 weeks of not being in the water. Kudos to Caroline and her first OT cut, which I would attribute to her years of hard work coming together and not a handful of months with TAC.