Men's swimming opens with record-setting relay national title
Texas had three gold medalists (Jack Conger, Townley Haas and Clark Smith) from the United States’ 800-meter free relay team in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Those three were also on the Longhorns’ record-setting 800-yard free relay NCAA national championship team in 2016.
And yet the best they could do on the opening day of the NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving National Championship in Indianapolis, Ind., on Wednesday evening was come second, 2.08 seconds behind NC State.
The Wolfpack, who last year won the ACC’s first ever relay national championship when it won the 400-free relay en route to a fourth place overall team finish in the final standings, became the first NCAA team ever to break 6:08 by swimming the relay in 6:06.53.
Olympic gold medalist Ryan Held, a junior, led off with a 1:31.37 split. Junior Andreas Vazaios and sophomore Justin Ress lengthened the lead in the second and third splits respectively, and then senior Soren Dahl, blistered the anchor leg in 1:30.67. Both Vazaios (Greece) and Dahl (Denmark) competed in the Olympics as well.
The Pack gets 40 points for winning the relay and going into Thursday’s first full day of action has a six-point edge over Texas in the standings. The Longhorns are the two-time defending national champion.
The championships run through Saturday evening.
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