NCAA Championships: Claire Curzan Secures First NCAA Title in 200 Backstroke; Bacon Edges Stadden for Second
During her last two years of high school, Claire Curzan propelled herself from National-Age-Group-record breaker to Olympian, achieving the top stage in the sport with a second-place finish in the 100-meter butterfly at the 2021 Olympic Trials, and then to international medalist. Curzan was a prelims relay swimmer at the Tokyo Olympics, and one year later at the World Championships, she won bronze in the 100-medals backstroke plus four relay medals as she took on a significant role for the U.S. women.
Now, it’s no surprise that Curzan has instantly been successful on the college stage. In high school, Curzan was even more prolific in short course than long course, with her underwater dolphin kickouts deployed to great effect, and she has combined with fellow Olympians Torri Huske and Taylor Ruck to highlight a strong Stanford team finished third overall at the NCAA Championships..
During her first two individual events of the meet, Curzan was slightly overshadowed in the 100 fly and 100 back as Virginia swimmers achieved record-smashing performances in both races, but Curzan finished a solid fourth place in the 100 fly and third in the 100 back. But all season, the 200 back was the event in which she seemed to have the biggest opening to win an NCAA title. At last month’s Pac-12 Championships, she swam a time of 1:47.43 to become the fourth-fastest swimmer in history, and Saturday evening in Knoxville, Tenn., she backed up that success with the national title by 1.64 seconds.
Cal’s Isabelle Stadden stayed close to Curzan early on, but Curzan blasted a 27.21 split on the third 50 to extend the lead to almost a second, and she held on down the stretch. Curzan touched in 1:47.64 for the win.
“I was just telling myself up at the blocks that I’m so excited for this race. It’s kind of my jam for short course, and I have been putting in a lot of backstroke work. Honestly, I was not nervous as I probably should have been. I was just excited to hopefully make it a good one, and I did,” Curzan said. “I’ve been looking forward to this meet for a very, very long time, so just to be here in person, it’s crazy. The TV doesn’t do it justice. It was just so crazy to be a part of this environment.”
The college environment at Stanford has been a refreshing change for Curzan. She sees promise in what she and her teammates can achieve under coaches Greg Meehan and Tracy Slusser, and while she does feel “kind of a mental block” with her butterfly, she has enjoyed getting to train next to Torri Huske, her fellow 100-meter butterflyer for the United States on the international level each of the past two years.
“I’m having so much more fun in training,” Curzan said. “I look forward every day to being next to my girlfriends. It’s so much fun to be able to train with them, and I think because of that environment, I’ve just gotten tougher mentally. I get in, and I attack hard sets that I normally would be afraid of. It was hard going to winter training and having to be apart from them for a little bit, but I always get excited when I get to go with them. I think a lot of good things are going to come.”
Wisconsin’s Phoebe Bacon finished well to overtake Stadden for second, 1:49.28 to 1:49.38. Bacon was the runnerup for the second consecutive season after winning this title in 2021, and in long course, she was the silver medalist in the 200-meter back at last year’s World Championships. Stadden, meanwhile, improved from a fourth-place finish last year.
Tennessee’s Josephine Fuller was the best of the rest in 1:50.22, while NC State’s Kennedy Noble (1:50.58) and Virginia’s Reilly Tiltmann (1:50.84) also broke 1:51. Meanwhile, 200-meter back World Championships bronze medalist Rhyan White surprisingly finished 15th in prelims, so she raced in the B-final. White dropped eight tenths at night, but she ended up in third place in a tight finish, touching in 1:51.93 behind Indiana’s Anna Peplowski (1:51.84) and Louisville’s Paige Hetrick (1:51.90).
Event 16 Women 200 Yard Backstroke
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NCAA: N 1:47.24 3/23/2019 Beata Nelson, Wisconsin
Meet: M 1:47.24 3/23/2019 Beata Nelson, Wisconsin
American: A 1:47.16 3/10/2019 Regan Smith, Riptide
US Open: O 1:47.16 3/10/2019 Regan Smith, Riptide
Pool: P 1:49.30 11/21/2020Rhyan White, Alabama
Name Year School Prelims Finals Points
=========================================================================
=== Championship Final ===
1 Curzan, Claire FR Stanford 1:49.48 1:47.64P 20
r:+0.71 25.52 52.68 (27.16)
1:19.89 (27.21) 1:47.64 (27.75)
2 Bacon, Phoebe JR Wisconsin 1:50.03 1:49.28P 17
r:+0.71 26.03 53.40 (27.37)
1:21.08 (27.68) 1:49.28 (28.20)
3 Stadden, Isabelle JR California 1:50.44 1:49.38 16
r:+0.71 25.62 52.82 (27.20)
1:20.68 (27.86) 1:49.38 (28.70)
4 Fuller, Josephine SO Tennessee 1:50.12 1:50.22 15
r:+0.68 26.09 53.90 (27.81)
1:22.03 (28.13) 1:50.22 (28.19)
5 Noble, Kennedy FR NC State 1:50.88 1:50.58 14
r:+0.59 25.94 53.90 (27.96)
1:22.29 (28.39) 1:50.58 (28.29)
6 Tiltmann, Reilly SO Virginia 1:51.23 1:50.84 13
r:+0.71 26.60 54.54 (27.94)
1:22.93 (28.39) 1:50.84 (27.91)
7 Bray, Olivia JR Texas 1:51.18 1:51.95 12
r:+0.74 25.48 53.37 (27.89)
1:22.41 (29.04) 1:51.95 (29.54)
8 Muzzy, Emma 5Y NC State 1:51.00 1:52.82 11
r:+0.75 26.01 54.17 (28.16)
1:23.41 (29.24) 1:52.82 (29.41)
=== Consolation Final ===
9 Peplowski, Anna SO Indiana 1:51.32 1:51.84 9
r:+0.81 26.51 54.86 (28.35)
1:23.34 (28.48) 1:51.84 (28.50)
10 Hetrick, Paige JR Louisville 1:51.84 1:51.90 7
r:+0.95 25.93 54.04 (28.11)
1:22.83 (28.79) 1:51.90 (29.07)
11 White, Rhyan 5Y Alabama 1:52.70 1:51.93 6
r:+0.75 26.31 54.51 (28.20)
1:23.24 (28.73) 1:51.93 (28.69)
12 Lindner, Sophie 5Y UNC 1:51.72 1:52.35 5
r:+0.75 27.01 55.17 (28.16)
1:23.67 (28.50) 1:52.35 (28.68)
13 Gorecka, Weronika SR Akron 1:52.43 1:52.63 4
r:+0.60 26.61 54.73 (28.12)
1:23.42 (28.69) 1:52.63 (29.21)
14 Bentz, Caroline JR VT 1:52.76 1:52.74 3
r:+0.68 26.33 54.67 (28.34)
1:23.62 (28.95) 1:52.74 (29.12)
15 Brooks, Caitlin SR Kentucky 1:52.35 1:52.96 2
r:+0.70 26.51 54.78 (28.27)
1:23.67 (28.89) 1:52.96 (29.29)
16 Nordmann, Lucie SR Stanford 1:52.54 1:53.29 1
r:+0.63 26.20 54.82 (28.62)
1:24.02 (29.20) 1:53.29 (29.27)
Women - Team Rankings - Through Event 16
1. Virginia 393.5 2. Texas 298.5
3. Stanford 260 4. NC State 215
5. Louisville 207.5 6. Tennessee 178
7. Ohio St 173 8. Indiana 159
9. Florida 150 10. UNC 130
11. California 121 12. Alabama 101
13. Wisconsin 100 14. Georgia 86.5
15. Southern California 86 16. Lsu 79
17. Kentucky 44 18. Minnesota 37
19. Miami (Fl) 36 20. Arizona 32
21. Michigan 29 22. Virginia Tech 28
23. South Carolina 25 24. Texas A&M 22
25. Duke 20 26. Auburn 14
27. Northwestern 13 28. Arkansas 12
29. Miami (Ohio) 9 30. Purdue 7
30. Penn 7 30. Florida St 7
33. UCLA 6 34. Akron 5
35. Arizona St 4 36. Utah 2
36. Georgia Tech 2 38. Florida Int'l 1
GOOD