On the final day of the 2012 Mexican Olympic Swimming Trials in Monterrey, Liliana Ibanez had one more race to complete her big comeback meet, and it was the best swim she’s had yet.
She capped a sweep of the three shortest freestyle events with a win in the 50 free by 25.82, which is again just a tenth off of a National Record. Close behind her was Texas A&M teammate Erica Dittmer in 26.35, which is a personal best for her. This sets the Aggies up for a big-time bounceback in the freestyle relays next year that they struggled so much with in 2012. Between this duo, their incoming freshmen, and a second year for some good sprinters in last year’s class, those relays won’t look like nearly as much of a weakness as they were last season.
Lesli Inurriaga took 3rd in 26.77, and the future of Mexican sprinting, Natasha Gvakharia took 4th in 26.87. Gvakharia is only 15 years old, and that time would rank her favorably near the top 30 American sprinters of that same age.
In the men’s race, Alejandro Escudero won in 23.26 to cap off a 50/100 sweep of his own.
Rita Medrano picked up her 4th win of the meet by winning the 400 IM in 4:55.36. She went out in a very fast first 100 meters, with a 1:04.5 on the butterfly leg. She held that together fairly well on the backstroke, but her pace fell off on the back-half of the swim.
In the women’s 100 backstroke, the fourth leg of what’s turning out to be a strong Mexican squad Maria Fernandez capped off a sweep of the backstroke events with a 1:01.49. That’s by far her best swim out of the two Olympic events, though it just misses her National Record from earlier this year. The Mexican women could probably put together an Olympic-qualifying-worthy medley relay of Fernandez-Dittmer-Medrano-Ibanez if they were so inclined; a good swim from that squad could get as low as a 4:07 or 4:06.