Luca Urlando Has Alternative to Convert 200 Fly Success into Stardom
The final time Luca Urlando posted a efficiency that set him up as the following American star within the 200 butterfly was six years in the past. The then-17-year-old swam a time of 1:53.84 at a Professional Sequence meet in Clovis, Calif., breaking a Nationwide Age Group document belonging to Michael Phelps and making him the third-fastest American ever on the time.
Urlando wouldn’t swim one other personal-best time within the lengthy course model of the occasion till this previous weekend. Following a record-smashing efficiency within the 200-yard fly on the current NCAA Championships, Urlando stayed on the west coast to race at one other Professional Sequence meet, this one held in his hometown of Sacramento. His quick course efforts mixed with a 100 fly greatest time arrange Urlando’s 200-meter race, and he responded with gusto.
His time was 1:52.37, annihilating that long-standing private greatest and making him the fourth-fastest performer ever within the occasion behind the final three Olympic gold medalists: Hungary’s Kristof Milak, France’s Leon Marchand and American legend Michael Phelps. He simply beat the 1:52.80 that Ilya Kharun swam to win Olympic bronze in Paris. Head-to-head, Urlando defeated Polish swimmer Krzysztof Chmielewski, the 2023 Worlds silver medalist within the occasion, by two seconds.
Now, the problem turns into sustaining that stage of efficiency, which circumstances prevented Urlando from doing in 2019, and attempting to finish an American run of futility within the 200 fly that has spanned nearly a decade.
Urlando wouldn’t have the chance to compete on the World Championships that 12 months, with USA Swimming having already chosen its squad one 12 months prior, however no American would eclipse that point for the rest of the 12 months. Urlando’s time would have been adequate for silver at that 12 months’s world meet in a remaining the place the lone American, Zach Harting, was nearly two seconds slower in a sixth-place end.
Luca Urlando on the 2025 NCAA Championships — Picture Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Since then, Urlando’s profession has been greatest recognized for his stumbles reasonably than successes. The COVID-19 pandemic and delay of the Tokyo Olympics halted his momentum, and by the point he reached the 2021 Olympic Trials, he might solely handle a time of 1:55.43 within the 200 fly remaining as he missed the Olympic group by 9 hundredths. Urlando would additionally end third within the 100 fly at that meet, and he gave up a spot within the 200 freestyle remaining (and a potential 800 free relay berth) to give attention to butterfly.
A 12 months later, Urlando would observe up a shock American document within the 100 backstroke together with his first World Championships look, the place he positioned fifth within the 200 fly. However at a World Cup meet that fall in Indianapolis, Urlando suffered a significant shoulder damage that knocked him out for the remainder of the season. He wouldn’t return to competitors till late summer time, and he initially solely raced freestyle in his comeback.
However by the summer time of 2024, Urlando could be able to problem for a spot on the Olympic group, and this time, he got here by. Within the semifinals, he swam beneath 1:55 for the primary time in two years to earn lane 4 within the remaining. The following evening, Urlando jumped from fourth to second on the ultimate size to safe his spot in Paris. Mockingly, the swimmer who completed forward of Urlando was Thomas Heilman, {the teenager} who had damaged Urlando’s 17-18 mark within the 200 fly one 12 months earlier.
Urlando would go one-and-done at his first Olympics, a disappointing time of 1:56.18 leaving him 15-hundredths away from the semifinals, however his ensuing return to the College of Georgia after nearly two years away introduced on the spot success. He lowered the NCAA and American information within the 200 fly in January, and on the nationwide meet, he completed third within the 100 fly and gained the B-final of the 200 IM earlier than his final-day triumph in his signature occasion.
Listed as a fifth-year swimmer, Urlando revealed on the conclusion of NCAAs that he nonetheless has two years of eligibility remaining because of an damage redshirt 12 months, an Olympic redshirt 12 months and the COVID waiver permitting him a fifth full season. With a university profession now set to stretch from 2020 till 2027 and the Los Angeles Olympics just one 12 months additional down the road, Urlando may have loads of possibilities to transform this newfound pace within the 200 fly into worldwide medals.
In fact, that’s a problem that has proved elusive for American males going again to Phelps’ retirement following the 2016 Olympics. Urlando, Heilman and Carson Foster have all ventured into 1:53-territory (or higher), however nobody has earned an Olympic medal or a protracted course World Championships medal within the 200 fly up to now eight years. Furthermore, the Paris Video games marked all-time low for U.S. butterfly as no American swimmer superior to the ultimate of the 100 or 200.
For years, it appeared like Urlando’s 1:53 greatest time was a white whale he could by no means match, however his renaissance over the previous three months have offered a path ahead for Urlando to succeed in the heights he was on observe for as a young person. He has a second probability to change into the much-needed American standard-bearer within the 200 fly.
