NC State’s swimming program will be sending 18 of its members to the Georgia Tech Campus Recreation Center in Atlanta to compete in the Toyota US Open Winter Nationals on Dec. 4-7.
These 18 members will also be paired with two NC State alumni, as they go up against some of the biggest names in swimming such as world record holder Katie Ledecky, Olympic and World Sprint champion Simone Manuel, and 19-time world champion Caeleb Dressel.
The USA Swimming event will be a long-course meters meet and will start out slow with a single long-distance session being held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 4th. After day one, the remainder of the days will be run with 10 a.m. preliminary rounds and 7 p.m. finals. Day one will only consist of an 800-meter freestyle.
Members such as NC State’s Hannah Moore with a seed time of 8:33.46 in the Women’s 800 LC meter freestyle, will compete head to head with world record holder and Olympic champion, Katie Ledecky.
Day two on Thursday will consist of the 400-meter freestyle, 200 meter IM and the 50-meter freestyle. Other Wolfpack names to watch out for are Eric Knowles, a four seed in the men’s 400 LC meter freestyle with a time of 3:48.34, only three seconds away from the first seed in the lineup.
Julia Poole, a name quite fitting for her skill, will be the six seed in the women’s 200 LC meter IM with a time of 2:12.53. For the men’s 50 LC meter freestyle, Nyls Korstanje will be the 16th seed with a time of 22.41, only a second off of the 1st seed.
Day three will consist of the 400-meter IM, 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter freestyle, 100-meter breaststroke and 100-meter backstroke. Finally, Saturday, Dec. 7, the meet finishes up with a 1500-meter freestyle, 200-meter backstroke, 100-meter freestyle, 200-meter breaststroke and a 200-meter butterfly.
NC State swimmers will wrap up the 2019 year this weekend but the divers will compete at the USA Diving Winter Nationals Dec. 17-22 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
