Gretchen Walsh Goes 20.75 in the 50 Free, Faster than Anyone Else Ever, at UVa Sprint Olympics

By Braden Keith on SwimSwam

2025 Virginia Sprint Olympics

• March 11, 2025
• Charlottesville, Virginia
• Short Course Yards (25 yards)
• Full Results

A Virginia tradition, the Cavaliers’ annual “Spring Olympics,” held during spring break every year, is a 4×50 yard quadrathalon that stacks up the Cavaliers’ best, in tech suits, ahead of the NCAA Championship meets.

All eyes this week were on perhaps the best college sprinter ever Gretchen Walsh, who even while racing against a loaded field that included her sister Alex Walsh, was more than five seconds ahead of the field on the aggregate, averaging an astonishing 1.32 second margin, per 50, over the next best finisher.

All four swims were done in about 90 minutes.

Gretchen Walsh‘s Results

• 50 fly – 21.79
• 50 back – 22.96
• 50 breast – 27.04
• 50 free – 20.75
• Aggregate – 1:32.54

Alex Walsh‘s Results

• 50 fly – 23.78
• 50 back – 24.60
• 50 breast – 26.97
• 50 free – 22.50
• Aggregate – 1:37.85

The buzz was around whether Gretchen’s aggregate time could beat the NCAA Record of 1:31.51. While she didn’t quite hit that mark, a 1.03 second allotment for relay exchanges would probably get her there.

For reference, her best splits of all-time in each 50 (with rolling starts for fly and free, though her best breaststroke split is on a flat-start), add to a 1:29.73. Those splits are 22.10 backstroke, 26.81 breaststroke, 20.87 fly, and 19.95 free.

The standout split for Gretchen was the 20.75 freestyle, which is not her personal best (20.37 from NCAAs last year), but is faster than anyone else in history has ever been. But maybe the real show-stopper was actually her 21.79 50 fly (albeit a fresh 50 fly to start the session). That is faster than Maggie MacNeil’s best relay-start time of 21.85, which means that it is faster than any woman not named Gretchen Walsh has been in a 50 yard fly even without the benefit of a flying start.

For comparison, last year, Gretchen went an aggregate 1:34.57, so she’s over two seconds better than that swim, and the overall Meet Record was a 1:33.86 done by Kate Douglass in 2023.

That sets Gretchen up for a mind-bending NCAA Championship performance, with that meet starting a week from today in Federal Way, Washington.

On the men’s side, Spencer Nicholas swam 1:26.93, which puts him within four-tenths of Matt Brownstead‘s Meet Record of 1:26.56 from last year.

The men are a week further from their NCAA Championship than the women are.

Meet Records

Gretchen broke 4 out of 5 women’s records, with Jasmine Nocentini’s 50 breaststroke from last year being the only one to survive.

On the men’s side, freshman Spencer Nicholas broke the overall 50 fly record by almost half-a-seocnd, while both he and his fellow freshman David King got the 50 back freshman record, with King’s 21.37 standing atop that pile.

King’s 19.70 in the 50 free also tied the freshman record in that race.

Women:

Men’s Records:

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