Grant Shoults Will Have Extra Year of Eligibility For Stanford Cardinal

Grant Shoults was listed as a senior on the Stanford roster, but will have an extra year of eligibility next year because he had shoulder surgery his junior year. Photo Courtesy: Andy Ringgold / Aringo Photos

Stanford’s Grant Shoults will have an extra year of eligibility to compete for the Cardinal in the 2020-21 season, he confirmed with Swimming World. Shoults was listed as a senior on the school’s roster, but will have an extra year of swimming after he underwent shoulder surgery in his junior season, which kept him out of competing for the second semester in 2019.

Grant Shoults at the 2019 US Nationals. Photo Courtesy: Connor Trimble

Shoults was one of the top distance swimmers in the nation, finishing fourth in the 500 at the 2017 and 2018 NCAAs. He was named the 2016 high school swimmer of the year by this publication after he set the national high school record in the 200 & 500 freestyle his senior season. Both of those records have since been broken but he remains a threat to make the 2021 Olympic team in the 400 freestyle.

He competed at the 2019 World Championships for the United States in the 400 free and was 25th at 3:52.96, after spending the majority of the summer recovering from his shoulder surgery. He had qualified for the 2020 NCAAs and was seeded 12th in the 500 (4:12.45), 17th in the 1650 (14:52.09), and 40th in the 400 IM (3:47.90) before the meet was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. At his best, he is a 4:10.02 in the 500 and 14:35 in the 1650, which would put him in the A-Final at NCAAs.

Stanford qualified seven guys to NCAAs this year and will be losing qualifiers James Murphy and Hank Poppe next season, but will be returning Brennan Pastorek, Jack LeVant, Daniel Roy, Matthew Hirschberger and Shoults. The team will also be gaining Worlds medalist Andrei Minakov which will help their relays tremendously.

Grant Shoults was the Pac-12 champion in the 500 freestyle this year and was third in the 1650.

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Johnny Karnofsky

4 years ago

All college athletes need an additional year of eligibility due to the coronavirus pandemic….

Superfan

4 years ago

Reply to Johnny Karnofsky

Will he needs taking grad courses or undergrad? Stanford athletes usually graduate on time in 4 years.