Emma Weyant Ends Day 3 Of FL Champs With 1:54.69 200 Yard Back PR

Florida Virtual Championships – Site 1 (Sarasota)

• December 11-13, 2020
• Selby Aquatic Center, Sarasota, FL
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Results on Meet Mobile: “2020 Florida Virtual Championships – Site 1”
• Live Stream (Sarasota Sharks Youtube Channel)

On the final day of competition in Sarasota, young swimmers threw down best time after best time, even shattering an LSC record between prelims and finals. 

In the 200 back, Emma Weyant of the Sarasota Sharks claimed 1st place in the 200 back with her 2nd best time of the day, 1:54.69. Including prelims and finals, this is more than a 5 second drop for the U.S. National Team member whose previous best was from July. In 2nd place was her 16-year-old Sarasota Sharks teammate Natalie Mannion who touched the wall with a time of 1:55.95, adding 1.5 seconds to her best time from 2019 which initially broke the LSC record.

Mannion later defended the top seed rank she earned in prelims in the 100 free, touching the wall 1st with a 1.3 second lead and a time of 50.06, close to her lifetime best. Her 14-year-old teammate Addison Sauickie followed up her best time of 16:38.84 in the mile a few hours before by snagging 2nd place in the 100 free with a time of of 51.41, right on her best time. 

Between prelims and finals, Weyant raced in the 1650 free, dropping 20 seconds from her lifetime best, and posting a time of 16:09.74 which ranks  her 77th out of the all-time fastest 17-18 year-olds in the event, tied with Sarah Dimeco. In that same race, her younger sister Gracie Weyant swam a time of 16:41.94. According to USA Swimming, this was her first ever sanctioned 1650 free.

In the 200 breast, the younger Weyant followed up a .75 time drop in prelims by dropping an additional 3 seconds from her July lifetime best and claiming 1st place with a time of 2:13.03. 15-year-old Gracie Weyant is now ranked 92nd out of the all-time fastest 15-16 year-olds in the event. Tonight, she finished with nearly a 2 second lead over the rest of the field.

In the men’s 200 back, Hayden Kwan of United Swim Club snagged 1st place with a best time of 1:44.93, shaving more than 1 second off of his previous best from the 2019 Winter Junior Nationals. Not far behind was Sarasota Shark’s Liam Custer who touched the wall in 2nd place at 1:47.36, adding 1.5 to his lifetime best. This swim comes after Custer’s eventful distance session before finals in which he broke Sean Grieshop’s 15-16 National Age Group record and the LSC record in the 1650 free, dropping 58 seconds from his previous best for a time of 14:37.86. 

Gator Swim Club’s Grant Sanders claimed 1st place in the 200 fly with a time of 1:47.18, coming within 2 seconds of his lifetime best from the 2018 SEC Championships. 15-year-old Evan Keogh of Sarasota Tsunami Swim Team was not far behind, touching the wall in 2nd place at 1:48.80 and crushing his previous best from March by almost 4 seconds. Sanders won the next event as well, the 100 free, with a time of 45.49, adding just over 1 second to his best time which he posted in 2017. 

15-year-old William Heary of Sarasota Tsunami won the men’s 200 breast with a time of 2:02.73, dropping an additional .85 seconds after posting a best time this morning. He clocked his previous lifetime best, 2:05.98, in December of 2019.

Sarasota Sharks Michaela Mattes and Addison Reese of Laker Swimming battled it out in the 200 fly, with Mattes ultimately out touching Reese by .06. The 15-year-olds posted best times of 1:59.20 and 1:59.26, respectively. Mattes dropped about 7 seconds in total today from her two-month-old best time while Reese dropped almost 1 second.