Swimming

Mikayla Tan Scares Natalie Coughlin’s LSC Record With 4:16.03 400 IM at Superleague Champs

February 16, 2024

2024 Superleague Champs

Feb. 3-4, 2024
Sacramento, California
SCY (25 yards)
Read more about Shareef Elaydi’s 3:50.95 400 IM here

Mikayla Tan is making it an annual tradition to pop off at California’s Superleague Champs, and the DART Swimming standout did not disappoint this year.

Right before turning 14 years old, Tan clocked a winning time of 4:16.03 in the 400 IM, shaving almost three seconds off her previous-best 4:18.99 from last year’s meet — which made her the youngest ever under the 4:20 mark at just 12 years old. She was actually slightly slower on the back half of her race this year, but her improvement on the opening butterfly and backstroke legs made all the difference.

Mikayla Tan, 4oo IM Splits Comparison

	2024 Superleague Champs – 4:16.03	2023 Superleague Champs – 4:18.99
100 Fly	57.70	58.74
100 Back	1:07.71	1:09.66
100 Breast	1:10.55	1:10.76
100 Free	1:00.07	59.83

Tan now ranks 47th in the U.S. girls’ 13-14 national age group (NAG) rankings, within a couple seconds of Natalie Coughlin‘s Pacific Swimming LSC record of 4:14.08 from way back in 1996. Tan will have almost a year to chase that mark, which stood as the NAG record for seven years.

Tan also won the 200 breast (2:13.57) and swam prelims of the 100 breast (1:03.29), 200 fly (2:04.92), and 200 IM (2:03.39). She has been about two seconds faster in the 200 breast (2:11.87), 100 breast (1:01.37), 200 fly (2:02.91) and 200 IM (2:01.00) throughout her career.

Clovis Swim Club 14-year-old Rowyn Wilber pulled off an impressive 200 back victory in a personal-best 1:58.39. She dropped almost a second off his previous-best 1:59.05 from December, moving up to 94th in the NAG rankings. Wilber also went 4:21.50 in the 400 IM en route to a runner-up finish behind Tan, improving upon her previous-best 4:25.92 from last March by more than four seconds.

The 200 back featured three girls under 2:00 in the final as Neptune Swimming 17-year-old Natalie Farquhar (1:59.11) and Sierra Marlins 17-year-old Erica Jaffe (1:59.77) rounded out the podium behind Wilber. Farquhar, a Princeton commit (’24), also posted a time 55.86 in the 100 back, just ahead of Jaffe (56.56), a UCLA commit (’25).

One of the wildest swims of the meet occurred in the 100 butterfly, where Clovis Swim Club 15-year-old Audrey Hill dropped more than four seconds to clinch the win in 54.29. Her previous best stood at 58.30 from 2022. Hill also threw down a lifetime best in the 100 free (40.94), chopping a couple tenths off her previous-best 58.30 from 2022.

Santa Clara Swim Club 17-year-old Eunice Lee got the better of Tan in the 200 IM with a winning time of 2:01.90. She has been as fast as 2:00.59 during prelims of last year’s CIF State Championships, where she ultimately placed 6th in the final as a junior. Lee registered personal bests in the 200 breast (2:16.75) and 100 fly (55.67) before she heads off to Yale this upcoming fall. It should be a welcome change of scenery as her Santa Clara Swim Club’s International Swim Center has been closed indefinitely since last month for repairs.

Boys Recap

Santa Clara Swim Club 14-year-old Shareef Elaydi blasted the swim of the meet in the 400 IM (3:50.95), dropping eight seconds to rank 2nd in his age group behind only Luka Mijatovic (3:49.32) — more on that performance here.

Elaydi engineered another incredible outing in the 200 breast (2:02.93), taking a few tenths off his previous-best 2:03.24 from November. In the process, he moved up to 27th in his 13-14 age group. Elaydi also dropped big time in the 100 back (51.57), shaving almost four seconds off his previous-best 55.18 from last February.

Mijatovic made some noise of his own at the Superleague Champs. The Pleasanton Seahawks 14-year-old posted a personal-best 49.38 in the 100 fly to place 2nd behind 15-year-old teammate Tim Wu (48.48). Mijatovic dropped more than a second off his previous-best 50.49 from last March, moving up to 29th in the NAG rankings. Wu has been as fast as 47.56 at last year’s CIF State Championships, which ranked him 3rd nationally in the 13-14 age group.

Mijatovic clocked another lifetime best in the 100 breast (58.73), slicing a few tenths off his previous-best 59.10 from last March. He flexed his versatility by firing off a 1:50.74 200 IM, 1:51.79 200 fly, and 46.16 100 free, not far off his personal bests from the past few months.

Wu went a best time in the 200 back (1:52.06) on his way to 3rd place behind Palo Alto Stanford Aquatics 17-year-old Gabe Anagnoson (1:52.00) and North Bay Aquatics 18-year-old Marre Gattnar (1:46.22). Santa Clara Swim Club 14-year-old Aiden Zhou just missed his lifetime best (1:53.10 from December) with his 4th-place showing in 1:53.11.

Wu also placed 2nd in the 500 free (4:30.69) behind Clovis Swim Club’s Ethan Linville (4:29.45) to go along with a 50.63 100 back that just missed his personal best (50.56) from April.

Remarkably, Gattnar’s 200 back victory was his first time swimming the event since 2019, when he went 2:07.10. That’s a 20-second drop for the Harvard commit (’24), who would have made the B-final at last year’s Ivy League Championships with his new lifetime best of 1:46.22. Gattnar also showed off his sprinting strength with impressive efforts in the 100 fly (47.77) and 100 free (43.98). He has been as fast as 47.08 in the 100 fly and 43.06 in the 100 free in December.

In just his third time swimming the 400 IM, DART Swimming 11-year-old Ayden Tan had a huge drop in the event. He posted a personal-best 4:30.57, dropping more than six seconds off his previous-best 4:37.00 from October. Tan tallied another lifetime best in the 200 IM (2:07.19), shaving more than two seconds off his previous-best 2:09.59 from September. He also clocked a 200 breast time of 2:26.03, not far off his personal-best 2:24.40 from October.

SwimSwam: Mikayla Tan Scares Natalie Coughlin’s LSC Record With 4:16.03 400 IM at Superleague Champs