REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP – LAZIO
- JULY 27 / AUGUST 8
- Swimming Stadium – Rome
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- Results
This report originally appeared on SwimSwam Italia.
A cat-and-mouse game of sorts continues to unfold this week in Italy between the teenagers Lorenzo Galossi and Davide Passafaro. The 14- and 13-year-old, respectively, have traded impressive 100m freestyle performances back and forth while competing at their regional championships.
Earlier this week Galossi clocked a huge lifetime best of 52.76 to take his meet’s 100m freestyle title, overtaking his previous career-quickest of 55.61. His time surpassed the previous Italian Age Record held by Federico Burdisso, which stood at 53.63 from 2015.
Answering Galossi’s performance was Passafaro, who, at just 13 years of age, crushed a time of 52.42 for a new lifetime best. Splits for Passafaro’s new 52.42 age record included 25.34/27.08, destroying his previous lifetime best of 56.12 from this same meet in 2019.
Flash forward to today and Galossi played for keeps, delving into the sub-52-second territory for the first time in his young career.
As lead-off on his squads 4x100m freestyle relay, Galossi threw down a massive 51.62 to surge his team to the lead and lower the Italian Age Record for 14-year-olds once again.
Splits for Galossi’s swim are not yet available. But, for perspective his 51.62 at 14 years of age would rank him 3rd among American men in the 13-14 age group all-time. Only Michael Andrew and Noel Strauss, with respective outings of 51.30 and 51.59 have been faster.
Within Europe, again at just 14, Galossi’s 51.62 ranks him just outside the top 25 swimmers in the 18&U category for 2020.
Additionally, Galossi clocked a new Age Record in the 200m free as a relay lead-off today as well. It was three days ago he nailed an opening split of 1:53.58 to become his nation’s fastest 14-year-old ever. However, this morning he fired off an even quicker 1:52.39 in the lead-off role to astonish once again.
His lead-off would rank him as the fastest American in the 13-14 age group in history. Only American Dare Rose has been in the same ballpark, producing a time of 1:53.30 as a 13-14-year-old.
Within Europe, Galossi’s 1:52.39 now inserts him into slot #18 among 18&U swimmers for 2020.
With today’s results, Galossi now owns the Italian Age Record across the 100/200/400 meters freestyle.
Video of Galossi’s 100m freestyle lead-off is below:
According the the video, Galossi was 25.18/26.44, very impressive splits
A few years back, top guys his age in Italy would swim 55″. They have improved in all areas of technique, but especially in turns and underwaters.
So I think the NAG is Dare Rose’s time, and Troy Dalbey (Troy Daley doesn’t exist to my knowledge) was maybe entered as a 14 year old in 91 by accident when he was actually 23?
In my opinion his 400 free time is the most impressive.
Italy has a really nice youth program, i think Italy will rank 2nd in Europe for the near future (behind Russia) and probably 6th in the world (behind the US, Australia, Japan, China and Russia). They are doing some really impressive work and i would like to know the reasons, maybe Germany could learn from Italy and follow in their footsteps. I don’t think that Italy is spending a lot more money on swimming than Germany or that swimming is much more popular in Italy.
I think that Galossi’s range in the free is really impressive: 51.62 in the 100 free, 1.52.39 in the 200 free, 3.57.24 in the 400 free.
He would have swum also in the 1500 free, this morning, but he chose to focus on 200 free and then, in the afternoon, on 100 free to regain the NR. In the 1500 free he swam a 15.40.59 at the beginning of December 2019, in SCM, so, also considering how he performed in the other races, I think he would have swum, at least, a similar time in LCM.
What’s most impressive is how Galossi continues to improve every time he dives in the pool, and his fierce determination in the… Read more »
I think it is pretty standard for younger guys to have a bigger range. The older they get the more they usually focus on only a few events. Of course he should focus on the events he is best in, but i am not sure what would be the best option from an italian perspective. On the one hand Italy could need someone to take over from Paltrinieri/Detti in the 800/1500 free in the near future, on the other hand he could help their 400 free relay and 800 free relay to become medal contenders. I don’t think that he will be able to do both at elite level. Italy already is a medal contender in the 400 free relay,… Read more »
Well, until yesterday I thought that, in perspective, the best distances for Galossi would be the 200 and 400 free.
This 51.62 in the 100 free is, for me, unexpected, so now I think that Galossi will be an amazing swimming history and it’s nearly impossible predicting in which distances he’ll focus.
For sure, I think that today has showed great determination and ambition, so: who knows that we’ll see an “Italian Thorpe”, capable to race, at a competitive level, from 100 to 400 free?
I think he is a swimmer plus half fast distances … for example a 400 free from 3m.39s rather than a 100 free from 47.8-48.00 … consequently on the 400 free you win a world championship or an olympics but with 47.8-48.0 you don’t win! the 3m.57s.24 of the other day is the most impressive record and in my opinion the most reliable
You could be right Giuseppe, but after his 51.62 in the 100 free I’m going to wait for any predictions about Galossi, because he has had a tremendously fast pace of improvement in the last 12 months, northeless the two months hiatus in training from early March to mid May.
Galossi’s PB in the 100 free was 56.31 last Summer and now is 51.62, i.e. 4,69 seconds of improvement. In the 200 free was 2.01.33 and now is 1.52.39, i.e 8,94 seconds of improvement (4,47 each 100 m). In the 400 free was 4.14.44 and now is 3.57.24, i.e 17,2 seconds of improvement (4,3 each 100 m). The 400 free was his first race and I believe that he… Read more »
Nuotofan are in tune with your calculations. But in the 400free the fact that it was the first race and without opponents is still too young to distribute the effort weighs heavily! demonstrated it in his first and second 200free distributing in a totally different way! in 51.62 he put the (sporting) anger to recover the record taken by Passafaro an opponent who however stimulated him by swimming in a good 52.85. from the type of swim he seems more like a fast middle-distance … oh then I can be wrong. .we will follow it very carefully
PS:Galossi’s previous record on 100 free was in long course 55.61 2019 and not 56.31! so the differential is not 4.69 but a little less 3.99
Right, I have considered his last 100 free for the Summer of 2019, but his best time was 55.61 swum previously. So the improvement is 3,99 seconds for the 100 free.
Galossi swam 1.52.39 this morning in an individual race with these splits: 26.81- 56.03 (29.22) -1.25.09 (29.06) – 1.52.39 (27.30). So, a nearly negative-split with a very, very impressive 27.30 in the last 50 m. Galossi used a different race-strategy compared to his previous 1.53.58 swum a few days ago, when he turned 54.95 at 100 m.
Swimming 1.52.39 in the 200 free in a nearly negative-split shows that the 14 year-old has room for improvement..
Splits for the 51.62 in the 4×100 free relay lead-off were: 25.18 – 26.44.
It’s interesting, a lot of these ‘next gen’ boys are back-halfing the race in a Chalmers-esque way. David Popovici split his SF in Baku something like 24.5/25.5 last summer, and Jacob Whittle split his 49.9 (24.4/25.5). A trend to watch out for perhaps.
As opposed to our generation going for the Anthony Ervin, or Roland Schoeman (2005 world’s) way?
”Speed Kills” – Santo Condorelli
When you’re 14 you just don’t have the front end speed
An element yeah, but I don’t think it entirely explains it. When I go through the British age 14 100fr records, only one other man splits the race similarly to Whittle (Ed Mildred who is a year older). The rest all seem to have more typical 2-2.5s differences between their first and second 50s.
Good lord, what’s in the water in Italy at the minute? How tall is he? Looks quite a big lad. Good skills for his age too. Superb swimming.