Bruno Moreno

Professional Sports Analyst & Journalist

World and American Records broken!

In the past US World Championship Trials everything was seen. From a World Record being broken to Olympic champions missing the team. Certainly it was a very unconventional time of the year for trials, however, due to the post pandemic situation sports organizations are trying to carry out all the events that did not happen in 2020, and athletes have to adapt to this new reality.

This being said, we will give you a quick recap of what happened last week at Greensboro Aquatic Center.

Men’s 100 freestyle: 

Current Olympic Champion, Caeleb Dressel was the favorite entering the meet, however, he was being chased by the younger generation led by Brooks Curry. 

Dressel got the job done, by touching the wall in first place with the number one time in the world this year: 47.79 (Competition date: April 30, 2022). 

Curry, an olympic gold medalist from last summer, got second with a personal best of 48.04. 

The rest of the team that will represent the US in the 4×100 freestyle relay are the following swimmers: Ryan Held, Drew Kibler, Hunter Armstrong and Justin Ress.

Men’s 50 backstroke: 

The final of the men’s 50 meter backstroke at the USA International Team Trials has been the fastest history has ever seen. 

Hunter Armstrong had the meet of his life and broke the WR (previously held by Kolesnikov) in a time of 23.71. 

He was not the only swimmer under 24 seconds, but Justin Ress also put in an incredible performance with the second fastest time in the world this year at 23.92.

Finally, Shaine Casas swam a 24.00 (3rd fastest in the world this year). He won’t race this event at Budapest, however, the times showed the backstroke dominance that the US has on the rest of the world. 

A very important fact to take into account is that any of the medalists of the 2019 World Swimming Championships would be at this year’s competition, putting the Americans as the main favorites to take the gold medal home. 

Women’s 800 freestyle: 

Katie Ledecky, as expected, won the 800 freestyle in an amazing time of 8:09.27. This is the fastest she has been since 2018, according to what she said in the post race interview (USA Swimming, 2022). 

Leah Smith finished in 2nd place with a time of 8:17.52 and she achieved her spot on the World’s roster for this year. Smith missed the Olympic team in 2021, certainly this is redemption for her.