Tyler Clary Breaks Ryan's NCAA Record in the 400IM and Florida Spring Championships - 2/27 Finals

Tyler Clary broke Ryan Lochte's NCAA record in the 400IM at the Big 10 championships on Friday with a time of 3:38.03. I honestly doubted the record would be broken BUT as I posted yesterday, I thought if any of Ryan's NCAA records was broken, this would be the one.

Congratulations to Clary. 3:38.03 is so fast and he is amazing. We'll have to see what happens at the NCAA championships, but it certainly looks like Clary has the potential to beat Ryan's personal best time in this event as well as Michael Phelps' American record. If Clary continues to improve, there's a good change he will represent the U.S. in the 400IM in Rome this summer. Hopefully he and Ryan will both qualify and give Laszlo Cseh a great race.

In Friday's finals at the Florida Spring Championships, Ryan placed first in the finals of the 200y Free with a time of 1:35.67 and first in the 400y IM with a time of 3:42.85.

Ryan's 400IM time is impressive, even though it is nearly 5 seconds slower than Clary's. Clary is swimming in his conference championships and is at least partially rested. He's at a different point in training than Ryan. From what I've read in Gold Medal Mel's blog, Ryan is in the middle of his hard training and is presumably not rested at all.

It will be very interesting to watch Ryan battle Clary in the 400IM next summer. I think they'll really push each other. I'm starting to think that Clary can be to Ryan what Ryan is to Michael Phelps.

Ryan negative split the 400IM in all strokes except fly (which is like impossible to do given the dive):

Fly - (23.66 and 27.46)
Back - (28.15 and 27.85)
Breast - (32.43 and 32.00)
Free - (26.64 and 24.66)

Compare that to the splits from Clary's record-breaking 400IM:

Fly - (22.75 and 26.29)
Back - (27.09 and 26.15)
Breast - (31.67 and 32.50)
Free - (26.35 and 25.23)

Tyler was faster on every split, except the second breastroke 50 and the last freestyle 50. The fact that Ryan had so much energy left that he swam 24.66 on the final 50 makes me believe he can go a lot faster when he is rested and he and Clary race each other.