By Braden Keith on SwimSwam
Leon Marchand swam a 4:02.31 in the 500 free on Thursday night. That’s the fastest ever. By a lot. You’ll read a lot about that elsewhere.
But I’m not going to repeat the details. Instead, what I want you to do is start thinking back over the last year. Think about all the times you said “that’s ridiculous” while watching a collegiate swim. All the times you became “lost for words” because you used your biggest adjectives on a 4:06.18…and then Leon went almost four seconds faster.
Leon Marchand. Gretchen Walsh. Kate Douglass. Leon Marchand again. Alex Walsh. Kos. Lasco. Berkoff. Liendo. Guiliano.
It is a great time to be a swim fan. It’s a great time to be a college swim fan.
Michael Phelps never swam in college, so we missed that. The Dressel phenomenon was unreal, as was Missy-Mania at Cal.
But this is different. The depth of otherworldly college swimmers currently swimming in the NCAA is unlike anything that has happened in my lifetime. Not just good, not just great, not just all-time great, but the kind of jaw-dropping greatness that we thought was generational. Our ‘every 5 years’ flood is coming every few weeks.
Records are falling by the fistful. Attendance is through the roof. There are journalists from Japan and China and France and every other corner of the world at this meet. When Leon gets on the block, bodies scramble for position.
There is an energy coursing through this sport right now. It feels like we’re on the edge of another plane of existence.
If you live in Indiana, and I know a lot of you do, then come out to the Nat this weekend. There are tickets available. It’s time to turn that energy into boots on the ground. This is our chance as a sport to set a pick and climb even higher.
I’m so excited. It has been such a good season. I don’t have any new words to describe it.
Please, friends, give me some of yours.
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