Worldwide Trio Has Introduced Scene-Shifting Affect to NCAA Ladies’s Swimming
Within the present period of faculty swimming, the dominant males’s applications mix home and worldwide expertise to assemble their rosters. Final season, seven out of 13 particular person titles on the NCAA Championships went to swimmers who symbolize different nations in world competitors. Fourteen out of 15 top-three relay groups featured a number of overseas swimmers, and within the 400 medley relay, an American-record-setting efficiency from N.C. State resulted in a ninth-place end.
The ladies’s aspect has been the full reverse. Virginia’s 5 consecutive national-title-winning groups have been fueled by U.S. swimmers, with the one overseas illustration coming from Aimee Canny and Jasmine Nocentini. Stanford and Texas, the applications persistently becoming a member of the Cavaliers within the top-three, have been completely American. Eventually 12 months’s nationwide meet, American girls received each particular person swimming occasion, and solely 5 non-U.S. swimmers had particular person top-three finishes – Cal’s Lea Polonsky, Michigan’s Stephanie Balduccini, Tennessee’s Mona McSharry and Indiana teammates Miranda Grana and Ching Gan. 5 additional girls contributed to top-three relays.
Count on a distinct sample this spring as three internationally-acclaimed swimmers have matriculated at contending universities: Italian sprinter Sara Curtis has change into a central participant for this 12 months’s Virginia crew whereas Nice Britain’s Eva Okaro is already the quickest within the quick freestyle occasions for Texas. Moreover, Estonian Eneli Jefimova is already one of many high dash breaststrokers within the nation as she begins her profession at N.C. State.
Curtis arrived in Charlottesville, Va., contemporary off a World Championships finals look within the 100 freestyle in Singapore, the place she took eighth. She additionally reached the semifinal spherical of the 50 free at that meet, and beforehand, she received a brief course world title with Crew Italy’s combined 200 medley relay in December 2024. However her most interesting worldwide effort got here after she started working beneath Virginia coach Todd DeSorbo and his workers.
On the current European Quick Course Championships in Lublin, Curtis captured seven medals, three of them gold. She clocked 25.49 for gold within the 50 backstroke, on the time a European file and adequate to make her the fifth-fastest lady in historical past. Curtis helped Italy to gold medals in each combined 200-meter relays. She additionally tied for silver within the 50 free and took bronze within the 100 free whereas serving to the Italian girls to 2 additional relay medals.
In yards competitors, Curtis at present ranks second within the nation within the 50 free at 21.18, with solely Torri Huske having been faster, and the mark sits twelfth on the all-time listing. Curtis can also be fifth within the 100 free (46.62) and seventh within the 100 again (50.56), and her high 50 again time of twenty-two.83 is faster than any swimmer went finally 12 months’s NCAA Championships. It might be unfair to match Curtis to Gretchen Walsh, however she’s going to play a serious function in making up for the factors misplaced with Walsh’s commencement as Virginia pursues one other crown. She is a lock for each dash freestyle relays, and her presence because the backstroker in medley relay motion would enable Claire Curzan to deal with butterfly and Anna Moesch to anchor.
Okaro, in the meantime, fills an enormous want for a Texas program that has by no means dominated the dash occasions like its major rivals. The 19-year-old made her Olympic debut in Paris with a relay last look, and he or she received a silver medal with the British crew’s 400 medley relay on the 2024 Quick Course World Championships. In 2025, Okaro received British titles within the 50 free and 50 fly, and he or she positioned eleventh within the 50 free on the Singapore Worlds.
In Austin, she is already the No. 1 choice for the dash occasions, having change into the primary Texas swimmer to ever cut up beneath 21 seconds for the 50 free. Individually, her 100 free high time of 46.49 ranks third within the nation behind solely Moesch and Huske, together with her 100 fly time of fifty.82 fourth and 50 free mark of 21.53 tied for ninth. Within the Longhorns’ five-year streak of top-three finishes on the NCAA Championships, the crew has had precisely one scoring swim in both the 50 or 100 free (Grace Cooper positioned ninth in 2024), making Okaro’s emergence a doubtlessly game-changing one. As for the 100 fly, Texas has graduated Emma Sticklen, Kelly Pash and Olivia Bray inside the previous two seasons, so Okaro might make up these factors whereas additionally taking on an vital relay place.
However of the European freshmen to reach in girls’s faculty swimming this 12 months, the one with the perfect shot at a person nationwide crown is Jefimova, additionally 19. Her file of senior-level worldwide accomplishments is already stacked, with an extended course European title within the 100 breast in 2024 and a bronze medal within the occasion on the Quick Course World Championships that very same 12 months. She is already among the many greatest lengthy course 50 breaststrokers on this planet, her time of 29.83 ending the 12 months because the second quickest on this planet for 2025.
On the World Championships in Singapore, she completed sixth within the 50 breast and tenth within the 100. Additional, she has captured back-to-back European quick course crowns within the 50 and 100 breast. Final December in Lublin, Jefimova swam occasions of 28.81 within the 50 and 1:02.82 within the 100, each meet data and vaulting her to No. 5 all-time in each occasions.
In faculty swimming, European swimmers have been extra profitable within the 100 breast than some other occasion, with Nocentini successful the title in 2024 and McSharry scoring quite a few top-three finishes alongside her Olympic bronze medal within the 100-meter occasion in Paris. For this season, Italian-native Anita Bottazzo has the nation’s high time for the Florida Gators at 56.87 with Jefimova second at 57.67. Furthermore, Jefimova turns the weakest leg of NC State’s medley relays right into a power. Combining with versatile sophomores Leah Shackley and Erika Pelaez plus backstroker Kennedy Noble and sprinter Olivia Nel, the Wolfpack might contend for top-three finishes on the nationwide stage.
When swimmers arrive in america to start competing in faculty, they generally face a studying curve as they compete in brief course yards for the primary time. Clearly, that won’t be the case for this trio. Based mostly on their early-season returns plus their trajectories of enchancment whereas representing their respective nations, Curtis, Okaro and Jefimova are all robust bets for particular person top-three finishes at this 12 months’s NCAA Championships.
