By Sophie Kaufman on SwimSwam
Triple Distance Meet
- October 18, 2024
- Stanford, CA
- 25 Yards (SCY)
- Full Results
The Triple Distance Meet has become a Stanford tradition and has been held every year—except 2020—since 2002. The uniquely formatted meet sees swimmers broken into six disciplines: sprint freestyle, distance freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and IM. Sprint freestyle and stroke swimmers swim a 50/100/200 in their discipline, while IMers swim the 100/200/400 IM, and distance swimmers race the 200/500/1000 freestyle. There’s also a 200 medley and 200 freestyle relay.
Paris Olympians Torri Huske and Jack Alexy made their season debuts in this non-scoring clash between Stanford and Cal. Huske swept the butterfly events as the Cardinal women won 16 of 20 events, and Alexy went three-for-three in the men’s sprint freestyle bracket.
Huske started her sweep by winning the first event of the meet, the 50 butterfly. She won the race by 1.31 seconds, touching in 23.31. Stanford dominated the women’s butterfly events, with Huske heading up 1-2-3 finishes in the 50 and 100 fly. She won the 100 fly with a 51.63, touching ahead of senior Lillie Nordmann (53.47) and freshman Annika Parke (53.99).
The 200 fly was much closer—Huske is a sprinter, while Nordmann shines in the 200 fly. Huske used her speed to build a big lead but tired on the final 50 yards, splitting 31.40. Nordmann put in a late dig with a 30.86 split but ran out of room to track Huske down. The Olympic gold medallist took the win, 1:56.39 to 1:56.98.
She closed out the day by teaming up with Levenia Sim (25.06), Lucy Thomas (26.86), and Anna Shaw (22.94) to win the 200 medley relay in 1:38.41, contributing a 23.55 butterfly split.
Alexy got the action started in the men’s sprint freestyle bracket with a 19.60 50 freestyle, winning the race ahead of Jonathan Tan’s 19.76. Tan fought back in the 100 free, turning at the halfway mark ahead of Alexy. But Alexy turned on the jets on the second 50 and powered to the win in 43.39 ahead of Tan’s 43.65.
Alexy came from behind again to win the 200 freestyle, this time running down teammate Robin Hanson on the final 50 yards with a 24.25 split. Alexy clocked 1:37.16, edging out Hanson by a tenth.
While Alexy’s 50 and 100 freestyle times were hundredths faster than he was at this meet last year, his 1:37.16 in the 200 freestyle is 3.82 seconds faster than he was last year—a mark of the dramatic improvements he made in the event last year, which culminated in him joining the sub-1:30 club.
Ron Polonsky’s sweep of the IMs (49.38/1:47.62/3:55.53) was the only other sweep in the men’s disciplines. However, on the women’s side, only the sprint freestyle bracket didn’t end in a sweep.
Isabelle Stadden won the backstrokes, clocking 24.62/52.82/1:55.71 as she easily collected the win in all three distances. That was the Cal women’s only sweep, as the Stanford women, building off a season that exceeded expectations, picked up right where they left off. Aurora Roghair, Caroline Bricker, and Lucy Thomas were huge for the Cardinal last season and opened the 2024-25 campaign by sweeping the distance free, IM, and breaststroke disciplines, respectively. The Stanford women return all their individual NCAA points from last season and with Huske’s return, they don’t look like they’ll slow down any time soon.
Kayla Wilson was also integral to their success as a young team last season. She won the 100/200 freestyle (50.71/1:48.89) but finished 5th in the 50 freestyle, as Stanford’s Anna Shaw and Cal’s McKenna Stone tied for the victory in 23.53.
Back on the men’s side, Bjorn Seeliger, Matthew Chai, Yamato Okadome, and Rafael Gu each picked up two event wins in their bracket. Seeliger swam 22.12/48.03 to win the 50/100 backstroke, but as a pure sprinter, didn’t have enough to win the 200 backstroke. Instead, it was Stanford senior Aaron Sequiera who won (1:44.85).
Chai won the 500/1000 freestyle, but it was 2023 Worlds qualifier Henry McFadden who claimed the 200 freestyle with a 1:39.44—the only swimmer in the distance bracket to break 1:40. Freshman Yamato Okadome, like Chai, was slower than he was last weekend against UCSD, but still claimed two more collegiate wins, swimming 53.74/1:56.62 in the 100/200 breaststroke. Zhier Fan won the 50 breaststroke in 24.71, beating Okadome by .12 seconds.
Rafael Gu sprinted to victory in the 50/100 fly (21.08/46.77), while Andrei Minakov beat Gabriel Jett in a thrilling 200 fly, coming from over a second behind to win in 1:45.08 to Jett’s 1:45.30 and give Stanford the win in all three fly events.
While the Stanford women won 80% of the day’s events, the men’s side was split with ten victories for each program.
Up Next
These two teams won’t have to wait long to renew their rivalry, as they face off in a two-day tri-meet at Arizona State from Nov. 7-8.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Torri Huske, Jack Alexy Sweep Disciplines In Season Debut At Triple Distance Meet