2023 CA FRAN CRIPPEN SWIM MEET OF CHAMPIONS
The third night of the 2023 Fran Crippen Swim Meet of Champions saw a ton of great racing. The finals session saw Sandpipers of Nevada 17-year-old Katie Grimes roar to a new personal best of 4:31.81 in the 400 IM, which you can read more about here. On top of that, Grimes helped the Sandpipers to a new National Age Group Record (NAG) in the girls 15-18 800 free relay.
The quartet of Macky Hodges (18), Grimes (17), Claire Weinstein (16), and Bella Sims (17) teamed up to swim a 7:58.93 to win the women’s 800 free relay by over 45 seconds. On top of the event win, the quartet shattered the NAG, which stood at 8:01.75 from North Baltimore Aquatic Club in 2014. That NBAC team featured Becca Mann, Cierra Runge, Heidi Miller, and G Ryan.
Below, you’ll find a split comparison between NBAC’s previous NAG relay and the Sandpipers’ performance last night. Note: The Sandpipers’ splits from last night on MeetMobile are inaccurate, however, we can use the overall time splits to figure out each individual swimmer’s time. We’re waiting on confirmation that these splits are in fact accurate and in the event they aren’t correct, we’ll update this post accordingly.
Although the Sandpipers girls smashed the NAG with their performance last night, the final time was nowhere near as fast as a relay featuring these four swimmers could be. The only swimmer on the relay who was close to their personal best last night was Hodges, whose PB sits at 2:00.00 and led the team off in 2:00.29. Grimes had swum her lifetime best of 1:57.85 earlier in the session last night, then split 1.20 seconds slower than that off a relay start. Weinstein didn’t race the 200 free individually yesterday, but her personal best is 1:56.71 and she was 1.77 seconds off that mark on the third leg of the relay last night. It was Sims who was furthest off her top time last night, however. Sims has a PB of 1:57.53 and swam a 1:57.63 individual 200 free last night, but was way off on the relay, splitting 2:01.11.
This is what this group of Sandpipers’ fastest add-up 800 free relay looks like using their flat-start career bests:
At this point, who knows if these four Sandpipers swimmers will team up again for an 800 free relay this summer, however, if they do it’s very plausible that they will lower the NAG again.
Of course, Grimes, Weinstein, and Sims have all won major international medals at senior competitions. All three competed at the 2022 World Championships last summer, where both Weinstein and Sims won gold medals on the US women’s 800 free relay. Grimes, meanwhile, is the most distance-oriented of the trio and she’s just now starting to come down to a place in the 200 free where she’ll be competing for a spot on the 800 free relay for international meets.
Hodges joined the Sandpipers at the end of last summer and has now been with the team about eight months. In those eight months, Hodges has recorded new personal bests in 23 events between SCY, SCM, and LCM. She hasn’t yet swum a personal best in the LCM 200 free with the Sandpipers, however, she did drop five seconds in the LCM 400 free this weekend in Mission Viejo, and she swam PBs in the yards 200 free and 500 free in the fall, so it feels like only a matter of time before she pops off a career best in the LCM 200.
While we don’t (yet) have a race video for the Sandpipers girls last night, we did find a race video for NBAC’s former NAG at 2014 Summer Nationals. If you’re interested in taking a trip down memory lane and revisiting a NAG relay record that stood for almost nine years, here is that video:
