Andrei Minakov Swims 1:38.61 In the 200 Fly as Stanford Beats Cal

By Braden Keith on SwimSwam

Cal vs. Stanford

• February 24, 2024
• Avery Aquatic Center, Stanford, California
• Short Course Yards (25 yards), Dual Meet
• Full Meet Results
• Team Scores
  • #8 Stanford def. #2 Cal 170-130

The traditional final dual meet of the season took place on Saturday between the men’s swimming & diving teams from Pac-12 and Bay Area rivals Cal and Stanford. The Stanford men came away with their second victory in three years and their largest margin of victory since 2012, beating Cal 170-130.

The two teams appear to be heading into championship season with two very different approaches. Stanford is already bumping up close to their best times, while Cal, which is famously hyper-focused on NCAAs and long course racing (and rumors are abound of some of their stars going to the Westmont Pro Swim instead of Pac-12s), look more like typical dual-meet form.

Stanford’s Andrei Minakov had the best performance of the meet. First he won the 100 fly in 44.60, beating out his teammate Rafael Gu (45.17) and the World Championship bronze medalist from Cal Dare Rose (45.89).

Those times by Minakov would have been 7th at NCAAs last year.

His best result was in his other event though: he swam 1:38.61 in the 200 fly to beat out Rose by more than three seconds. Minakov’s 200 fly time ranks #2 in the NCAA this year behind only Arizona State freshman Ilya Kharun and would have won last year’s NCAA Championship.

That swim breaks Minakov’s own Stanford Record of 1:38.63 set in the team’s January 19 dual meet against Arizona State. This is only the fourth time in his career that Minakov has swum the 200 yard fly.

He was on fire throughout the meet. He split 19.73 on the fly leg as part of Stanford’s winning 1:23.35 in the 200 medley, which was just .03 seconds ahead of Cal.

Minakov was the difference-maker there and gave his freshman anchor Jonathan Tan the chance to hold off an 18.36 anchor from Cal’s Jack Alexy, the World Championship silver medalist in the 50 free last year.

That was Stanford’s best time of the year.

Minakov also split 41.32 on Stanford’s anchor (2:48.55), but Cal was up to the task this time, winning in 2:47.93.

Cal’s relay again included a big leg from Alexy, who led off in 41.52. That’s just-off the 41.40 he went at the Arizona State dual meet last month and is faster than all-but-seven other swimmers nationally.

Given what we expect about where Cal is with this meet, and that time, he’s due for something big in March.

He swam the 200 free, a secondary event, individually, placing 3rd in 1:33.08. His 2023 World Championships teammate Henry McFadden, a Stanford freshman, won in 1:32.62, and Luke Maurer of Stanford was 2nd in 1:32.81. That’s a new lifetime best for McFadden, and his third time sub-1:33 this season.

Maurer’s time was just two-tenths shy of his own personal best.

In a kind of odd result, Alexy then finished just 5th in the 50 free in 19.83 – missing the wall on his turn. That race was won by Cal’s Bjorn Seeliger, who just returned from the World Championships, in 18.88.

Seeliger also grabbed a win in the 100 free in 41.83, half-a-second ahead of Stanford’s Andres Dupont Cabrera (42.37) and Destin Lasco (42.40).

In total, Stanford won 9 out of 16 events, including a sweep of diving by Jack Ryan, but it was their silver and bronze medal swims that made the biggest difference. Stanford had 10 of each, as compared to just 6 of each for Cal, which begins to add up over a long meet.

Other Key Results:

• Stanford junior Ron Polonsky won the 100 breast in 51.39 ahead of his sophomore teammate Zhier Fan (51.70). That swim for Polonsky is a quarter-of-a-second shy of his personal best, and the 1-2 was a big points swing to hold off Cal’s Liam Bell.
• Cal senior Destin Lasco fought back Polonsky later in the meet in the 200 IM, swimming 1:41.28 to Polonsky’s 1:42.10. Lasco was faster on every leg of that swim than Polonsky except for one, the breaststroke, where Polonsky was eight-tenths better. That’s going to be his biggest weakness if he wants to pull an upset at NCAAs over defending World and NCAA Champion Leon Marchand.
• Cal junior Gabriel Jett showed off his range by anchoring Cal’s 400 free relay in 41.75 and also winning the 500 free in 4:10.43. That’s about eight-tenths away from his lifetime best and is faster than he swam to place 6th at NCAAs last year.
• Stanford went 1-2-3 in the men’s 200 breaststroke, racking up a huge 16-3 point event margin (the maximum possible barring DQs). That was led by Fan in 1:52.68.
• Cal 5th year Colby Mefford won the 200 back in 1:41.97, beating out his freshman teammate Keaton Jones (1:42.11) in one of the best results for the Golden Bears on the day.

SwimSwam: Andrei Minakov Swims 1:38.61 In the 200 Fly as Stanford Beats Cal