2014 Austin Grand Prix: Big names dot 100 free fields after prelims

Day 1 of the 2014 Austin Grand Prix is underway, and the big news of the first day already is that Allison Schmitt has scratched one of her two events on Friday, dropping the 400 free and remaining entered in the 100 free.

Aside from those two events, the first day of the meet will include the 200 breast and the 100 fly, plus the 400 free relay in the evening session.

Here’s the link for everything needed to follow the meet, including live results and a live feed.

Women’s 100 Free – Prelims

One of our keys to the meet was Simone Manuel showing one more time that she’s ready to hang with the elites in the women’s sprint freestyles, and once again she’s risen to the task, easily taken the top seed in the women’s 100 free in 54.60. Despite only being a high school senior, she shows the kind of big-meet resilience that we’ve gotten the last few years from the likes of Missy Franklin and Katie Ledecky at a similar age.

She was well ahead of Bahamian Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, the fastest woman over 10 yards ever, as the 2nd seed in 55.35. Allison Schmitt took 3rd in 55.46, followed by fellow Georgia alum Megan Romano in 55.63.

Speaking of Georgia Alums, this 100 free had a Courtney Monsees sighting, representing the Santa Clara Swim Club for whom she now coaches. The former 8-time UGA All-American was 17th in prelims in 57.73. Monsees has swum a few meets since graduating from Georgia, but this is the best she’s been in the 100 free by far since completing her NCAA eligibility.

Back to the A-Final, rounding things out after Romano were Canadian Victoria Poon (55.64), Amanda Weir (55.80), Natalie Coughlin (56.00), and distance swimmer Katie Ledecky (56.00).

Amanda Kendall, who is swimming in her first long course meet since the 2012 Olympic Trials, was 9th in prelims in 56.01. That’s a good time for her, which is no surprise given that she was a 48-low in yards in December.

Men’s 100 Free – Prelims

There wasn’t a lot to show in the men’s 100 free prelims, especially as compared to the 47.7 Australian James Magnussen went on Friday in Victoria, but there is a lot of potential for the final of this race.

NBAC’s Conor Dwyer was the only swimmer under 50 seconds, going a 49.93 for the top seed. He was followed by his French training partner Yannick Agnel in 50.16.

Anthony Ervin was a 50.48 for the 3rd seed, followed by the home-town favorite Jimmy Feigen in 50.52. Feigen is a native of nearby San Antonio, and swam collegiately at the University of Texas (though he’s swimming unattached at this meet).

Nathan Adrian, who is always in the spotlight when he swims, will be at least out of it’s center, as the 5th seed in 50.65. That will put him in lane 2 in the final, and a bit out of the focus.

A third NBAC swimmer, Matt McLean, took the 6th seed in 50.77, followed by Alex Coville (50.88) and Dax Hill (50.89). The top under-18 swimmer was all the way down in 24th place thanks to a 52.42 from Machine Aquatics’ James Murphy at 16 years old. Russian pro Arkady Vyatchanin was in that neighborhood as well with a 52.64 for 26th.

Barring scratches, 14-year old pro swimmer Michael Andrew missed out on a second swim, touching in 53.32 that is far from his best time.

Women’s 200 Breast – Prelims

The final of the women’s 200 breaststroke will have a distinctly Austin flavor to it. The top seed is Olympian Micah Lawrence, who swam at Pflugerville High School in the Austin suburbs; and the second seed is Laura Sogar, who while originally from New England is a Texas graduate who won the NCAA Championship in the yards version of this event for the Longhorns last year.

Lawrence was a 2:27.90, and Sogar was a 2:28.19 as the two top seeds by quite a stretch.

The top four of this race, in fact, all have big Texas ties. The 3rd seed is SMU’s Rachel Nicol, a Canadian who trains with the Mustangs in Dallas, and the 4th seed is SwimMAC Carolina’s Katie Meili, who is a 7-time Texas private school state champion out of Nolan Catholic, also in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

That’s about as far as that theme goes, however, as the next couple of seeds are about the furthest-from Texas. Tera van Beilen, a Canadian, was 5th in 2:34.06, and Justine Mueller, who’s a Michigan girl training in Florida, was the 6th seed in 2:34.09.

Lithuanian breaststroke Raminta Dvariskyte is the 7th seed in 2:34.96, and 16-year old Texan Destiny Nelson was the 8th seed in 2:35.50. Out of the A-final swimmers, the 6 of the 8 have heavy ties to Texas.

Missouri’s Abby Duncan is the 9th seed after prelims in 2:35.57.

Men’s 200 Breast – Prelims

The men’s 200 breaststroke, though not with the typical big-name American breaststrokers at the top, provides some intrigue, as Scotland’s Ross Murdoch took the top seed fairly easily in 2:14.73. He was followed by Conor Dwyer (2:16.50), who is swimming all of the 200 meter races at this meet aside from the 200 free.

That is easily Dwyer’s best time per USA Swimming’s official database, but he hasn’t swum the race since he was 17. He developed into a very good, though perhaps not quite World-class, breaststroker in his three years at the University of Florida, so it wasn’t unexpected for him to clear his personal best by almost 40 seconds.

U.S. Olympian Scott Weltz (2:17.03) and U.S. World Champs swimmer BJ Johnson (2:17.81) followed as the 3rd-and-4th seeds respectively.

Brazilian Gabriel de Sousa, who is listed as training out of NBAC, was the 5th seed in 2:17.95, followed by 17-year old Andrew Seliskar in 2:18.44, New Zealander Glenn Snyders in 2:18.72, and Canadian Nick Kostiuk in 2:19.35.

Cal’s Josh Prenot was DQ’ed in the race, and also in this race was Chip Peterson, a former open water national teamer, touching in 27th in 2:29.26. Peterson has only swum one pool race since May of 2013.

All-in-all, the three finals tonight will be very heavy on foreigners.

Women’s 400 Free – Prelims

The three big names in the women’s 400 free grabbed the three middle lanes for tonight’s final, as 16-year old Katie Ledecky took the top seed in 4:10.60, followed by Chloe Sutton in 4:12.18 and Danish swimmer Lotte Friis in 4;12.94.

Longhorn Aquatics’ Quinn Carrozza was the 4th seed in 4:15.44, and the youngest swimmer in the finals was 13-year old Madison Homovich from the North Carolina Aquatic Club in 4:17.12. That’s a huge jump for Homovich, whose best time last summer was a 4:23.99. She’s even better in the 800 and the butterfly events, which we’ll see her swim later in the meet, and the 1500. That swim jumps her from outside of the top 100 all-time in 13-14’s (well outside) to 37th place, and she’s still on the younger end of the age group.

Isabella Rongione was a 4:17.47 for 6th in her first swim since joining Katie Ledecky’s NCAP training group, followed by Canadian Savannah King (4:17.86) and another NCAP swimmer Megan Byrnes (4:18.02).

Among the notable names in the B-Final include Cal’s Caitlin Leverenz, who is better known as an IM’er and breaststroker, with a 4:19.60 for the 10th seed and Remedy Rule in a 4:23.25.

Men’s 400 Free – Prelims

Yannick Agnel didn’t appear to show any weakness swimming the 400 free just a couple events after the 100 free. He’s the top seed by a solid margin after going 3:51.77 to win the first circle-seeded heat. Tunisian Olympian Ous Mellouli is the second seed and will swim right next to Agnel in the final tonight.

Tyler Clary, who is mostly known for his 200 back (where he won Olympic Gold in London) and his IM races, showed off his underrated freestyling ability, going 3:54.13 for the third spot. He was followed by three of the more well-known distance freestyle names at this meet – Matt McLean (3:54.30), Michael Klueh (3:55.31) and Michael McBroom (3:55.85).

That means three of the top four seeds for tonight’s finals all represent NBAC – Agnel, Mellouli and McLean. That’s hardly a complete surprise, considering North Baltimore’s historically great production in the middle-distance to distance events, but Bob Bowman’s crew will have a shot at sweeping the top three tonight, which would be a pretty big statement in a field this solid.

Current California Golden Bear and Canadian national Jeremy Bagshaw is 7th in 3:56.31, and Mexico’s Julio Andres Olvera Alejos rounds out the A final for tonight. The B final will be pretty loaded as well, with big names such as former Michigan Wolverine Ryan Feeley, NBAC-er Tom Luchsinger, Wisconsin’s college star Michael Weiss and U.S. Olympian Charlie Houchin all in the running.

Women’s 100 Fly – Prelims

17-year-old Canadian Noemie Thomas leads the field into tonight’s final. She won the event at this meet last year, and was the only swimmer under a minute in prelims, going 59.39. Amanda Kendall sits second with a 1:00.18 in her long-course comeback, and Canadian Audrey Lacroix is third with a 1:00.45.

SwimMAC’s Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace is the four-seed, followed by Remedy Rule, Kathleen Baker, Justine Mueller and Kendra Chernoff.

Just missing the A final was Megan Kingsley of Mount Pleasant along with Cal’s Caitlin Leverenz.

Men’s 100 Fly – Prelims

Cal grad Tom Shields is the top seed after prelims. He went 53.06 with the best back-half split of anyone in the field. He’s followed by Jason Dunford, representing Palo Alto Stanford, and 17-year-old Andrew Seliskar of Nation’s Capital, who went 53.98.

Stanford pro Eugene Godsoe is fourth and his teammate Bobby Bollier fifth. A pair of foreigners, Coleman Allen of Canada and Christian Diener of Germany are in the final, as is SwimMAC’s Nick Thoman.

North Baltimore pro Tom Luchsinger just missed the final and the 55-second barrier, going 55.03.