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Israeli swimmer Lea Polonsky has announced her verbal commitment to swim at Cal. The 18-year old will join the Golden Bears in the fall of 2021 after attempting to qualify for the Tokyo Olympic Games next summer.
Polonsky was a bronze medalist in the 200 IM at the 2019 European Junior Swimming Championships, swimming 2:14.29. That put her four-tenths of a second behind her countrymate and peer Anastasia Gorbenko, who is the current National Record holder.
Polonsky herself is a former Israeli National Record holder in the 400 IM at 4:49, though both herself and Gorbenko (who has competed professionally in the ISL) have undercut that time many times since.
Polonsky is proficient in all 4 strokes and projects as a true primary IMer at Cal. Since 2012, in 8 NCAA Championship meets, Cal has had the 200 IM national champion 4 times.
Polonsky to this point of her career has been at least as good in short course as she has in long course, which is encouraging for her transition to the short-course heavy NCAA system.
Best Times:
| LCM Best | SCM Best | |
| 50 free | 26.75 | 25.42 |
| 100 free | 58.13 | 55.99 |
| 200 free | 2:01.94 | 1:57.95 |
| 100 back | 1:04.69 | 1:03.84 |
| 200 back | 2:20.15 | 2:19.31 |
| 100 fly | 1:00.48 | 59.37 |
| 200 fly | 2:12.82 | 2:10.00 |
| 100 breast | 1:08.97 | 1:08.93 |
| 200 breast | 2:32.77 | 2:25.35 |
| 200 IM | 2:13.61 | 2:10.95 |
| 400 IM | 4:44.86 | 4:40.87 |
Polonsky’s best in 2018 in the 400 IM was 4:49.41, then in 2019 she went 4:48.22 before dropping to a 4:44.86 in February, shortly before the global coronavirus pandemic shut down most of the world’s swimming competition.
She is so far just short of the Olympic “A” cuts in both the 200 IM (2:12.56) and 400 IM (4:38.53), but has multiple “B” cuts.
Cal finished 2nd at last year’s Pac-12 Championships. They performed very well in the 200 IM at that meet – their 83 points was their 2nd-best output behind only the 100 back. In the 400 IM, they still did well, but with only 58 points were outscored by rivals and eventual champions Stanford by 52 points.
The Cal women were seeded to score the 3rd-most swimming points at the NCAA Championships, behind Virginia and Tennessee, before the season was cancelled.
The Cal women have one of the biggest committed classes of 2021 which includes the 9th-ranked recruit Mia Kragh, Top 20 honorable mention recruit Alicia Henry, “Best of the Rest” honorees Alicia Henry, Melanie Julia, and Shelby Suppinger, along with Stephanie Akakabota, McKenna Stone, Jessica Davis, Ella Mazurek, and Elizabeth Cook.
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Great recruit!