Matt Fallon Wins 200 Breast at Ivy Championships with Nation-Leading 1:49.75

2024 Ivy League Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships

• Wednesday, February 28 – Saturday, March 2, 2024
• Blodgett Pool, Cambridge, MA
• Defending Champions:
  • Men: Harvard (6x)
• Championship Central
• Fan Guide
• Live Results

FULL RESULTS

Men’s 200 Yard Breaststroke – Finals

• Ivy Meet: 1:50.27, Matthew Fallon, Penn (2024)
• Pool Record: 1:50.27, Matthew Fallon, Penn (2024)
• NCAA A: 1:51.09
• NCAA B: 1:57.44
• 2023 NCAA Invite Time: 1:52.94

Podium:

1. Matt Fallon, Penn – 1:49.75
2. Jack Kelly, Brown – 1:51.63
3. Demirkan Demir, Columbia – 1:54.38
4. Charlie Egeland, Yale – 1:55.52
5. Joshua Corn, Columbia – 1:56.01
6. Sebastian Wolff, Cornell – 1:57.02
7. Peter Whittington, Penn – 1:57.07
8. Jason Schreiber, Penn – 1:57.47

He’s back.

Penn junior Matt Fallon, who placed third in the 200 breast at 2022 NCAAs during his freshman season but missed the national championships last year because of an injury, is back to his old form.

Fallon came into the 2024 Ivy League Men’s Championships seeded third in the 200 breast with a 1:55.84 from the Princeton-Cornell-Penn double dual meet in November. Both Brown junior Jack Kelly (1:52.03), who won the 100 breast conference title on Friday night, and Yale first-year Charlie Egeland (1:55.38) had been faster during the season and were ranked first and second, respectively.

Fallon wasted no time, clocking a 1:50.27 in prelims to hit the NCAA ‘A’ standard and book his ticket to Indianapolis. He lowered his own Ivy meet record (1:51.44) from 2022 and destroyed the Harvard pool record (1:53.72), set by Alex Evdokimov of Cornell in 2017.

In finals, Brown’s Kelly knew he needed to be out fast because Fallon has the toughest back half in the business. And to his credit, he went for it. He was out in 25.04, putting himself nearly half a body length ahead of Fallon (25.63). He was 53.21 at the 100 to Fallon’s 53.76.

But Fallon was just getting ready to take off. He upped his tempo on the fifth 25 and outpaced Kelly by .85 on the third 50 and by 1.58 seconds on the fourth 50. Fallon split 25.63-28.13-27.90-28.09 to finish with 1:49.75, the fastest time in the country so far this year. Kelly improved his PB to 1:51.63 and currently ranks among the top-10 in the NCAA.

Fallon’s is the lone sub-1:50 in the nation headed into NCAAs. He has swum 1:49s three times in his career:

• 1:49.03 – 2022 NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming Championships (prelims)
• 1:49.16– 2022 NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming Championships (finals)
• 1:49.71 – 2021 Zippy Invitational

It’s interesting to see his strategy evolving. Whether he is aggressive on the first 50 or lets up, he gets to the 100 wall at around 53.7. His third 50 is always faster than his second – it has been as much as 1.2 seconds faster– and he comes home with whatever he’s got left in the tank.

The 2024 NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships will take place on March 27-30 at the IU Natatorium on the campus of IUPUI in downtown Indianapolis. Indiana Sports Corp and IUPUI are the co-hosts.