Thomas Heilman breaks Michael Phelps record to open swimming nationals
Thomas Heilman, 16, broke a Michael Phelps national age group record on the first day of the U.S. Swimming Championships and is in line to become the youngest American man to swim at a world championships since Phelps in 2001.
Heilman took second in the 200m butterfly to Carson Foster, who prevailed in 1:54.32.
Heilman, a touted Virginia high school student, overcame a 1.34-second deficit to second place in the last 50 meters to grab a likely spot on the world team pending the U.S. not exceeding an overall roster limit come the end of the five-day nationals in Indianapolis.
Heilman touched in 1:54.54, breaking Phelps' national age group record for 15- and 16-year-olds by four hundredths of a second. Phelps set that record when he won his first world title in 2001, and it was a world record at the time.
"It's just amazing to be even mentioned in the same sentence as him," Heilman said of Phelps.
Later, Katie Ledecky won the 800m freestyle in 8:07.07, the third-fastest time in history. She owns the top 30 times in history, led by the world record of 8:04.79. She's going to a U.S. record-tying sixth worlds next month in Fukuoka, Japan.
Nationals continue Wednesday, live on Peacock .
SWIMMING NATIONALS: Broadcast Schedule | Results
Earlier in the morning preliminary heats, five-time Tokyo Olympic champion Caeleb Dressel placed 29th in the 100m free, missing the top eight-man final that was later won by rising Cal junior Jack Alexy.
Dressel entered nationals having competed at one full meet in the last year after withdrawing during last June's worlds on undisclosed medical grounds. He took at least two and a half months off from swimming after that and returned to organized training with his University of Florida group in late January or early February, his coach said.
He ramped up toward a full training workload in nine or 10 weeks, entered his first meet in May and went into nationals ranked ninth, 16th and 24th among Americans this year in his primary events: 100m butterfly, 50m freestyle and 100m free, which he swept in Tokyo.
Dressel's next event is the 50m fly on Wednesday.
Bobby Finke, the Olympic 800m and 1500m free champ who trains at the University of Florida with Ledecky and Dressel, won the 1500m comfortably.
Kate Douglass took the women's 100m free in 52.57 seconds to become the second-fastest American in history behind 2016 Olympic champion Simone Manuel, who opted not to compete at nationals as she focuses on 2024.
Douglass, a reigning NCAA champion in breaststroke, butterfly and individual medley events, is joined on the world team by Tokyo Olympian Abbey Weitzeil, who was second in 53.11.
Regan Smith cruised to win the women's 200m fly in 2:05.79, distancing runner-up and training partner Lindsay Looney by 1.56 seconds. Smith, who lowered the American record to 2:03.87 earlier this month, took Olympic silver in Tokyo. She's also a world champion in both backstrokes and the fastest American in five different events this year.
Hali Flickinger, who earned Olympic bronze and silver at the last two worlds, was seventh.
