Competing at Brazil’s Julio de Lamare Trophy for junior swimmers, 1998-born Guilherme Costa hit the 3rd-fastest 1500 free in national history at 15:14.04.
Costa is still competing in Brazil’s Junior-2 category, which comprises athletes born in 1997 or 1998 – his 1998 birthday would put him at 17 or 18 years old at the moment. But even as a junior, Costa was fast enough to lead all Brazilian milers for the season.
His 15:14.04 also would have won the national title at last May’s Maria Lenk Trophy and would have qualified for an Olympic berth. Brazil’s Olympic entrants qualified with times of 15:14.40 (Miguel Valente) and 15:14.48 (Brandonn Almeida). Costa was third at Maria Lenk, going 15:26.94.
Costa’s swim broke a meet record that had stood since the suited era of December 2009, and it was also the first time Costa topped Almeida – a former junior world record-holder – in head-to-head competition. Almeida was 15:51.75 for second this week.
Costa is already somewhat of an international veteran, having swum at the 2015 Junior World Championships in Singapore.
Full results of the first day of the Julio de Lamare meet are here, in their original Portuguese. Junior 1 includes athletes born in 1999, while Junior 2 is for those born in 1997 or 1998.
1997 makes him either 18 or 19