A season for the ages
The youngest (and oldest) Division III swimmers with top times
Nationals will be here in… yikes… two weeks. Now is our best chance to look at all the non-Nationals swims this season.
The great thing about categories is: the categories available to us are limited only by our desire to invent new ones. Or split - ever-finer - the ones we already have.
Take age, for example. We could divide up Division III swimmers by their class (First-Year, Sophomore, etc) or by ‘age-year’, like ‘today, Brendan Kapp of RIT turns 23 years old.’1 But where is the fun in that?
Number of days since birth
Instead, let’s get some precision into our age measurements by looking at the ‘number of days since birth’. That will be a little finer than just using age-year or class.
Youngest to reach the top 20 in any event
Men - Henri Bonnault, Emory, 6,516 days old
First award goes to Henri Bonnault who came to Emory from ‘Racing Club de France’ (which appears to be in Paris), and he managed to crack the Top 20 in both 100 and 200 Breast. At 6,516 days old (17.85 years) he is literally too young to legally buy scratchers at the local gas-station.
Women - Lisa Torrecillas-Jouault, Kenyon, 6,634 days old
Ms. Torrecillas-Jouault also has two top 20 times: 100 Back and 100 Free. About to finish her first year at Kenyon, Ms. Torrecillas-Jouault is younger than about half the high-school seniors we know. She is also from Nantes, FRA.
Did you notice they are both from France?
Youngest to reach the Top 10 in any event
Men - Sven Becker, Emory, 6,727 days old
This is starting to feel like one of those ‘another sign of Emory dominance’ situations. Emory already has the youngest athlete with a Top 20 times in any event. They also have the youngest athlete with a Top 10 time in any event. In this case, Mr. Becker’s 200 Back was good enough for 6th place in Division III this year.
Women - Lillian Klinginsmith, Tufts, 6,750 days old
Ms. Klinginsmith qualifies in 100 Free, 100 Fly and 200 IM. We will return to Ms. Klinginsmith in a moment.
Youngest to reach the Top 3 in any event
Men - Leo Han, NYU, 6,859 days old
Mr. Han’s 1:46.33 in 200 Fly is good enough for third place in Division III. Impressive for someone who is still 2.5 months away from turning 19 years old.
Women - Lillian Klinginsmith, Tufts, 6,750 days old
Hey, remember Lily Klinginsmith? You know, the one from Tufts. Yeh, so, what we did not tell you earlier is that her Top 10 times are also Top 3 times. And she has three of them. She is first in 100 Fly, third in 100 Free, and third in 200 IM. We anticipate Ms. Klinginsmith will be part of the discussion in the coming days when we start comparing swims, and swimmers, across events.
You know who deserves special mention?
Kaley McIntyre of NYU. She is two days younger than her teammate, Mr. Han, and Ms. McIntyre is Top 3 in 200 Free. Impressive.
Among the swimmers who have been on this earth a comparatively larger number of days…
Lest we risk accusation of age bias, we took a look at the accomplishments of some swimmers who have been on this earth for a comparatively larger number of days.
Men - Cherantha De Silva, Kenyon, 9,729 days old
Mr. De Silva has a Top 10 time in 100 Fly and a couple Top 20s in 50 and 100 Free. He’s an impressive sprinter. And he is the most senior athlete in our sample.
Having spent relatively more time swimming than others, he practically had two swimming careers, and we are watching the second one. The first one took place in Sri Lanka, where he had some success.
He’s also been around long-enough to have his own Wikipedia page.
Probably worth noting that Mr. De Silva is not 'just a little' older than his competition. He is more than a year older than his next closest comp - Bryan Sullivan of Millsaps College.2
Women - Augusta Lewis, C-M-S, 8,501 days old
Yeh, we did a double-take too, because compared to the older men, Ms. Lewis is not that old. In years, she is 23.29 which is basically ‘Senior-year Crile Hart’ territory. But Ms. Lewis is currently the oldest swimmer with a Top 10 time in a Women’s event…and Ms. Lewis has four Top 10 times - 200 Breast, 200 Fly, 200 IM and 400 IM (in those IM’s, she is top two in both distances). Meaning, she is basically outstanding at… everything.
Thanks for reading. After we complete some computations, we will be back with another post, this time comparing swims across events. Until then, enjoy the peace and quiet.
Happy birthday, Mr. Kapp (Mr. Kapp’s birthday is today - March 2).
Mr. Kapp is the only swimmer in our sample with a birthday today. Keep in mind that our data sample is ‘Division III swimmers who swam a top 100 time in any event in the 2022-23 NCAA season, so far.’ That works out to 1,189 Division III athletes.
It is not really surprising that Mr. Kapp does not share his birthday with any other athletes in our sample. There are 44 days on the calendar where only one Division III swimmer has a birthday.
The surprise factor is ramped up slightly because - in Division III - March births are the most common. Don’t know if that holds in other divisions, but it would not surprise. If you think back to age-group championship meets, there is probably no more advantageous birth month than March (with April in second place). But we’re just speculating. We don’t have a hot-take on the advantageous-birthday/athletic advantage discussion.
If you care, the most common birthday in Division III is May 10th. Ten different Division III swimmers in our sample were born on that day.
We don’t talk enough about Bryan Sullivan. He’s Top 10 in 50 Free and Top 20 in 100 Fly. He’s really good. And hats off to the Millsaps web-team for getting some truly awesome photos onto his bio page. Look at this one:
Right? How great is that?
That dude is 26??? That’s ridiculous. 8 full years older than Bonnault. He better win NCAAs! LOL