Day Two of the 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games ended with a huge finals session, and the men’s 200 free was no exception. The three medalists each broke their respective national records, while gold medalist Joao De Lucca also set new South American and Pan Am Games records. Read more about those records here.
Lost in the excitement was another national record– Tomas Peribonio, who just wrapped up his freshman season in the United States at the University of South Carolina, set a new Ecuadorean record in the 200 free in the B final. His time of 1:50.98 cleared his own 1:51.61 from the morning session which initially broke the old record of 1:53.28 set by Jorge Delgado Panchana. That record was set in 1978, at the World Championships in Berlin, East Germany, and had stood for thirty-seven years until Peribonio took a sledgehammer to it in prelims and then again in finals.
Here’s a look at his splits from prelims to finals, where he broke the Ecuadorean record both times:
Prelims: 26.22/28.46/28.44/28.49 = 1:51.61
Finals: 25.59/28.08/28.64/28.67 = 1:50.98
Peribonio, who finished 4th overall at the 2015 SEC Championships in the 1650 free as a freshman, gets better the longer he’s racing. That showed today, as the last three 50s of his 200 free in both prelims and finals were incredibly consistent. The difference for him in finals was going out with more intensity, and he was able to hold on to better his morning swim by over six tenths.
This won’t be the end of the 19-year-old’s meet, either. Peribonio will swim in heat two of the men’s 400 IM tomorrow morning, but he’s got the best chance at posting a top-eight time in the 1500 free on Saturday.