The Dynamo Swim Club, based out of Atlanta, got off to a hot start in the first session of the 2012 USA Swimming Winter Nationals on Thursday, and among the hottest was Gunnar Bentz in the men's 200 IM. He swam a 1:45.17 for the 5th seed headed into finals, which is a new National Age Group Record in the event.
That takes down the 2011 record of Bolles superstar Ryan Murphy that was a 1:45.77 from 2011. Michael Phelps sits 2nd on that list all-time.
This is the second NAG-record breaking swim of the morning that nobody, at least externally of their teams, was looking for. It's not that either swimmer lacked talent, the drops just seemed so significant to get to the records. Then again, Bentz did touch faster than Michael Phelps' long course NAG Record this summer at Jr. Pan Pacs, but got DQ'ed, so not totally a shock, either.
Bentz was already 5th in the age-group all-time, but his previous best was over two seconds slower in 1:47.48. Interestingly, that previous best was in the same meet where Murphy had broken the record at last year's Winter Juniors; Bentz finished 4th in that race as a 15-year old.
Bentz took this record with a phenomenal breaststroke split of 30.53; roughly half-a-second better than when Murphy broke the record. Improvement on his front-half, the butterfly and backstroke legs, is where the real improvement has come in the last year since his previous swim.
NCAP's Andrew Seliskar, also 16, was a 1:46.56 in prelims to earn a B-Final berth. There's a shot he could get under the old record in finals as well.
Comparative splits:
| Murphy – 2011 | 23.02 | 26.61 | 32.03 | 24.11 | 1:45.77 |
| Bentz – 2011: | 22.70 | 26.81 | 30.53 | 25.13 | 1:45.17 |