Could the Entire Women’s 100 Fly A-Final Go Sub-50 at This Year’s NCAA Championships?

By Riley Overend on SwimSwam

Only six women have ever broken 50 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly at the NCAA Championships. There’s a strong possibility that more swimmers achieve the feat at this year’s meet alone.

The fact that the four fastest women in the history of the 100 fly (Virginia’s Kate Douglass, LSU’s Maggie MacNeil, and Stanford’s Torri Huske, and Claire Curzan) will likely compete for this year’s NCAA title has dominated headlines, but the depth of the event this season is almost as impressive.

Virginia sophomore Gretchen Walsh (49.34) and Texas junior Emma Sticklen (49.79) have also been sub-50 this season, while Louisville junior Gabi Albiero (50.04) and Texas junior Olivia Bray (50.07) are just a blink away after clocking lifetime bests at their respective conference championships.

If Douglass, MacNeil, Huske, Curzan, Walsh, and Sticklen can match their season-best times, and if Albiero and Bray can drop another tenth in the next month, it’s conceivable that the entire A-final could break the 50-second barrier.

A comparison of Bray’s previous bests illustrates just how much this event has progressed in the past four years. Her previous-best 50.19 from 2019 ranked her as the eighth-fastest performer ever at the time, but her new lifetime best of 50.07 on Friday night only ranks eighth this season.

Top 8 Performers This Season, 100 Fly

1. Kate Douglass (Virginia) – 48.84
2. Maggie MacNeil (LSU) – 48.99
3. Torri Huske (Stanford) – 49.25
4. Gretchen Walsh (Virginia) – 49.34
5. Emma Sticklen (Texas) – 49.79
6. Claire Curzan (Stanford) – 49.93
7. Gabi Albiero (Louisville) – 50.04
8. Olivia Bray (Texas) – 50.07

Cal star Natalie Coughlin went 50.01 back in 2002, but it took another 13 years before Louisville’s Kelsi Worrell became the first sub-50 swimmer in the 100 fly at the 2015 NCAA Championships with a 49.81. Besides Worrell, MacNeil, Douglass, and Huske, the only other two swimmers to have dipped under 50 seconds in the event are Louise Hansson and Katie McLaughlin.

SwimSwam: Could the Entire Women’s 100 Fly A-Final Go Sub-50 at This Year’s NCAA Championships?