A Ridiculous Record You Won't Find on the Books

When you’ve got a medley relay stacked with names like Omar Pinzon, Ben Hesen, Shaune Fraser, and Raul Martinez you know that it’s going to be fast.  After all, Pinzon and Hesen are two of college swimming’s best ever backstrokers, and Fraser is one of the NCAA’s greatest flyers.  So what if Hesen has to do breaststroke?  With Fraser doing fly and Pinzon backstroke you could throw my grandmother on the relay and it’s still going to be solid!

So imagine you put a quartet of upstart 15-16 year-olds in the next lane and tell them to go for it, to race these guys.  They’d have no shot, right?  No chance at taking on these post grad phenoms!  Well, you’d be right, kind of. 

This all happened in Orlando, Florida on February 25, 2011.  The youngsters from the Bolles School Sharks lost…but barely.  And on their way to second place they absolutely SHATTERED a 15-16 NAG Relay record by nearly 6 full seconds.  Only you probably won’t see the record on the books because the third leg swimmer, despite being a USA Swimming member for the last 18 months, is not American.  He isn’t as lucky as Michael Cavic, who has the 15-16 record in the 100 yard fly, a record he set a year after representing Yugoslavia in the Olympics.  Cavic has dual citizenship.  Half and half, so to speak, where as this record was ¾ American.

So here’s the story of the record, the video to prove it all happened, and the link (http://www.floridaswimming.org/szfllsc/__eventform__/139330_sr%20champs%20results.pdf) to the official results where you’ll see that two of the swimmers were still 15 years old when the record was set.

That Friday, February 25, the swimmers’ coaches had an epiphany:  They had a slew of studly 15-16 year-olds on the team and a completely reachable 4 x 100 Medley Relay record opportunity that night.  No one had thought about it before that day.  No one had considered it.  And despite two of the 15 year-olds not being shaved, once the thought occurred to break the record everyone knew it was not only in reach, it was about to be far in the rear-view mirror.

So here’s the Bolles line-up in order of appearance:  Ryan Murphy (15), Teo D’Alessandro (16), Joseph Schooling (15), Ian Apple (16).

- Murphy, who had just swum a lifetime best 400 I.M. before the relay, led off against Pinzon.  They turned within .04 of each other at the 50 and continued neck and neck.  Off the third wall Pinzon hammered his underwater, but Murphy kept pace up top.  When they touched Murphy was 48.62, a mere .13 behind the Columbian Olympian.

- Next up, De’Alessandro, who had already swum lifetime bests in the 200 breast and 400 I.M. that night, shattering Shaune Fraser’s own meet record in the I.M. by 4 seconds.  He lost some ground to Hesen the first 50 of the breaststroke, but kept pace the back half and split a 57.03.  The kids were a half second behind.

- When Shaune Fraser hits the water on butterfly against a 15 year old, it should all be over.  But an unshaved Joseph Schooling wasn’t scared, he was stoked.  He wanted this race.  He took his first 50 out in 22.38, just 2-tenths behind Fraser’s opening split and as fast as Schooling had ever swum a 50 fly.  But he kept coming and split a 48.65, nearly .9 slower than the former NCAA champion’s own split.

- Before the relay Ian Apple had asked one of his coaches what time they needed to beat.  The coach told him they needed to break 3:20.  He laughed and asked what the record was and the coach said to forget the record, go for something remarkable.  Ian went for it, flipping at 21.8 and making ground on Martinez.  The last 50 he kept coming and coming, but there was too big of a gap and the relay finished second.  The time on the clock: 3:20.64. 

3:20.64.  The record, set in 2009 by City of Plano, was 3:26.60.  2009, the year of the suits.  That’s not mentioned to take away from the COP swimmers, but to put into better context what this troupe of kids actually did.  No full body suits.  Just jammers.  And a race that electrified hundreds of people that night. 

Here is USA Swimming’s rule on NAG Records: 

- 3. National Age Group Records.

A. Requirements

(1) Only USA Swimming members, who are U.S. citizens representing a USA Swimming club or competing unattached, are eligible to establish National Age Group records.

That makes sense, yes, but consider that USA Swimming also allows for both American and U.S. Open records.  American records are only achievable by U.S. Citizens.  U.S. Open records are open to anyone and represent the fastest time swum in the United States.

Should USA Swimming also recognize a U.S. Open record at the NAG level?  If the swimmer is a paying member of USA Swimming, shouldn’t he/she have the opportunity to have such an achievement recorded?  This has probably happened before and it will probably happen again.  But when you are talking about an achievement that is so extraordinary, well, extraordinary measures should, perhaps, be taken.

The reality is that the Bolles coaching staff had other 15-16 year old swimmers that could have been placed on that relay.  The freestyler, Ian Apple, had already been 50.9 in the 100 fly and could have swum that leg.  Another freestyler on the team had already been 47 from a flat start.  With the switch to an “All-American” team the relay still had every reasonable chance of being well under the 3:26.60 NAG record.  The coaches could have made that move, but if they did they were faced with taking off a swimmer who deserved to be on the relay.  And at the end of the day they wanted what every coach wants:  To put together the best team possible on that day.

Regardless of what the record books end up saying this is one that is unlikely to go down anytime soon.  Congratulations fellas!

Dedicated to:                    Ryan – Teo – Joseph - Ian

Comments

[Lisa Aubley]

Awesome!!! Congrats guys and coaches