2019 Western Zone Age Group Swimming Championships
- August 7th-10th, 2019
- Gresham, Oregon
- 50m (LCM)
- Meet Results on Meet mobile: “2019 Western Zone Age Group Championships”
12-year old Teagan O’Dell from Chino Hills Aquatics in Southern California has broken the 11-12 National Age Group Record in the girls’ 200 meter IM. She swam a 2:18.69 to win the Zone title by eight-and-a-half seconds, which also cleared the National Age Group Record of 2:19.12 that was set by Missy Franklin in 2008. 3 months later, at only 13 years old, Franklin would race at her first Olympic Trials meet, and 2 years after that she won her first international medal, silver in the 100 back, at the 2010 Short Course World Championships.
Much like Franklin, O’Dell’s primary stroke is backstroke – she’s already been 1:05.0 and 2:19.1 in the 100 and 200 backstrokes in long course, which rank her 11th and 3rd, respectively, in age group history. But what makes O’Dell really special is that she swims all 4 strokes at an elite level. Cal women’s head coach Teri McKeever made overtures at a belief that Franklin had enough breaststroke to shoot for medals in the 200 IM, we never really saw that fully realized.
Meanwhile, O’Dell is good enough that as a member of the Southern California Swimming “all-star” team, she’s not even swimming any backstroke races at this meet. In fact, she won the 50 breaststroke already in 33.60, a second-and-a-half than Franklin’s best time ever (at any age) in that event, and has the 100 breast left to swim later in the meet.
That difference shows up in the splits comparison between the two, and is where O’Dell made her big run at the record.
Comparative Splits:
| Missy Franklin | Teagan O’Dell | |
| 2008 National Age Group Record | 2019 National Age Group Record | |
| Fly | 30.30 | 29.67 |
| Back | 34.73 | 35.41 |
| Breast | 42.77 | 40.71 |
| Free | 31.32 | 32.90 |
| Total | 2:19.12 | 2:18.69 |
O’Dell also won the 100 free in 58.41, split 58.04 on Southern California Swimming’s winning 400 free relay, and split a 32.96 breaststroke leg on a winning 200 medley relay.
Franklin, an 11-time World Champion and 5-time Olympic gold medalist, announced her retirement from competitive swimming in December at the age of 23.
Once this swim is ratified, Franklin will be down to 10 National Age Group Records in long course across all age groups, including the 13-14 200 IM, and the 50 free in the 11-12 age group.
Wait until you see the Australian 12 year olds at the moment coming through. They have been doing those times regularly. It looks like the Paris 2024 Olympics might have a lot of young guns competing. Great for swimming world wide.
One year after Tokyo Olympics when Games in London will be an ancient history nobody of young swimmers will know who Missy Franklin actually was. Just another good swimmer who swam many golden relays and at some points held children and adult records that since got broken by new swimming heroines.
Are you serious?
That’s what the comments section needs. Yohzik vs Bobo Gigi in a battle to the death
My money is on Bobo.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
How about Natalie Coughlin whose legacy is incomparably more exciting than three years of international success of Missy Franklin. The impressive world record of later kept her on the surface for a while and it’s gone now thanks to Regan Smith. The only thing left to mention (as this article does) is her 11 world titles 7 of which are relays.
Missy Franklin was a supernova: BUMMMM!!!!! …And nothing left.
I saw her. She’s like 6 feet tall it’s scary.
Only if you’re 5 feet tall.
And she uses every bit of her height.
Wow, good job!