Men's NCAA Champs: 800 Freestyle Relay Highlight
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800 FREESTYLE RELAY
NCAA Record:Meet Record:
American Record: 6:10.16 (Texas, 2009)
US Open Record:
WOW. We knew NC State was good, but they just blew every expectation out of the water to win the 800 freestyle relay by over two seconds with a 6:06.53, over a second and a half faster than the previous NCAA, Meet, and US Open Record of Texas from 2016. Ryan Held got the Wolfpack off to a great start with a blazing 1:31.37 on the lead-off. He was followed by Andreas Vazaios (1:32.23), Justin Ress (1:32.26), and Soeren Dahl (1:30.67). Talk about consistency -- these guys did not have a weak leg. Texas grabbed the silver with a 6:08.61 led by Jack Conger (1:31.54) on the lead-off and Townley Haas (1:30.42) on the anchor. It would have been interesting to see how this race would have played out with Joseph Schooling, but Texas still has a lot of cards to show and will bounce back. Florida rounded out the top three with a 6:09.30 led by very consistent relay splits from Jan Switkowski (1:32.44), Maxime Rooney (1:32.67), Mitch D'Arrigo (1:32.73), and Mark Szaranek (1:31.46).
Of note, Blake Pieroni of Indiana and Dylan Carter of Southern Cal dropped the second and third fastest flat start 200 freestyles of all-time with a 1:30.87 and 1:30.95, respectively. The individual 200 freestyle on Friday is going to be one hell of a race...
1.) NC State: 6:06.53 (NCAA, Meet, & US Open Record)
2.) Texas: 6:08.61
3.) Florida: 6:09.30
4.) California: 6:09.56
5.) Southern Cal: 6:10.97
6.) Georgia: 6:12.54
7.) Stanford: 6:12.66
8.) Louisville: 6:12.81
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