Rausch & McKenna Join Olympic Trials Qualifiers With Huge Time Trial Drops

17-year-old Malia Rausch logged a new Olympic Trials cut with a massive five-second time drop in the 400 free at a time trial meet in Lewisville.

Rausch entered the meet with a lifetime-best of 4:18.66 hit just a month ago at the San Antonio location of the U.S. Open. Even then, Rausch had dropped more than four seconds off her best time from 2019, so the improvement curve was evident heading into this week. But few could have foreseen such a huge drop – the 17-year-old from Austin Swim Club dropped all the way to 4:13.58, blasting past the 4:16 Olympic Trials cut.

That’s Rausch’s first Trials cut.

Full results of the meet are available on Meet Mobile under “2020 NT LAC Time Trial.”

17-year-old Conor McKenna of Lakeside Aquatic Club also registered his first Olympic Trials cut with a big time drop. McKenna entered the meet with a lifetime-best 200 fly of 2:04.35. But he blasted a 2:00.13 to get under the Trials cut by just over a second.

That swim moves McKenna to #75 all-time in USA Swimming’s 17-18 historical ranks.

Other big swims

17-year-old Cory Shanks dropped to within .01 seconds of a new Olympic Trials cut with a 26.00 in the 50-meter free.

For Shanks, that was a drop of .02 from her lifetime-best of 26.02. That was set at the Speedo Sectional meet back in March. The U.S. Olympic Trials cut for 2021 stands at 25.99. Shanks already has the 100 free Trials cut, but is on the cusp of adding a second event. She competes for the South Shore Sails.

Meanwhile 14-year-old Hannah Marinovich of Clovis Swim Club moved to #37 all-time for the 13-14 age group with a 1:11.22 in the 100 breast. Marinovich dropped three-tenths of a second and now sits just three-tenths off the Trials cut.

Austin Swim Club 18-year-old Adam Fusti-Molnar went 1:03.32 in the 100 breast. That’s a drop of 1.2 seconds, and moves him to within three one-hundredths of a second of the Olympic Trials cut.

Some other notable swims:

• 16-year-old Laci Black of the Rockwall Aquatic Center of Excellence dropped three tenths of a second to go 4:52.71 in the 400 IM. She’s just under a second away from a new Trials cut.
• Lakeside’s Cooper Lucas has been on a tear this year in the 400 IM. His best time was 4:35.1 through 2019, but he went 4:30.5 in January of this year, and now cut to 4:27.59 to win this weekend. He’s now within 1.6 seconds of the Olympic Trials cut.
• Tate Sloan, 18, had one of the meet’s biggest relative drops, taking almost two seconds off his 50 free best from 2018. Sloan was 24.61 to win that event for Surge Aquatics.
• It wasn’t a lifetime-best, but Austin Swim Club’s Jillian Cox went 8:45.17 to win the 800 free. She’s been about a second faster than that, but the swim should check her in at #10 in the entire U.S. this season among swimmers of any age. The 15-year-old Cox is 3rd for the season in the 15-16 age group.