Walsh Sisters Will Lead Virginia Women to More Relay Records in College Finale
Perhaps you remember the iconic college swimming career that Kate Douglass put together at the University of Virginia. Her first season was cut short when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the NCAA Championships, but after winning the 50 freestyle in her second year, she took off. During her last two years, Douglass won every race in which she competed at the NCAA Championships, three individual events and four relays each year. She departed for the professional ranks having the top times ever in the 200 IM, 100 butterfly, 200 breaststroke and all four sprint relays.
While Gretchen Walsh made quick work of the 100 fly record one season later (and is now threatening to bust through the 47-second barrier), Douglass’ other individual records could survive a while longer. As for the relays, different story: The 200 freestyle and 400 medley marks are already gone, with the other ones likely to follow at the upcoming NCAA Championships.
Take a bow, Walsh sisters. While Gretchen has stolen the sport spotlight for her otherworldly performances in the short course sprint events, Alex Walsh is about to finish one of the great college careers ever. Thanks to the fifth-year waiver, Alex is about to become the first swimmer to ever take part in five NCAA team championships. Her 32 total ACC titles and 12 individual wins are the most in conference history, and at the national meet, she has won eight individual events and taken part in 19 relays (including all five relays at least once). This upcoming NCAA Championships will be her last college meet as well as her sister’s, with Gretchen ineligible for a fifth year.
Alex Walsh — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
This season, Claire Curzan is part of the collegiate roster for the first time to give Virginia about as monstrous a 1-2-3 punch as imaginable. She and the Walsh sisters have already joined forces to annihilate the fastest times ever in two relays. At the ACC Championships, those three plus Aimee Canny clocked 6:44.13 in the 800 free relay to beat the record held by the Stanford team of Katie Ledecky, Simone Manuel, Lia Neal and Ella Eastin. Three days later, Anna Moesch was the fourth member of a 400 medley relay team that wiped almost one-and-a-half seconds off the existing NCAA and American marks. The top time from the era of Douglass and the Walsh sisters is more than two seconds back of this latest 3:19.58.
Also at the ACC meet, the Big Three plus Maxine Parker finished four tenths off the NCAA record in the 200 free relay before the meet concluded with Curzan, Moesch and the Walsh sisters coming up only nine hundredths short of the 400 free relay top time. As for the 200 medley relay, Virginia sat out its big guns at the conference meet, but in a dual-meet against in-state rival Virginia Tech, the Cavaliers swam a time of 1:31.53 to miss their all-time best mark — another one which featured Douglass — by a measly two hundredths. Expect at least some of Virginia’s top group to rotate back onto the squad when it’s go-time in Federal Way, Wash.
One more NCAA Championships for the Walsh sisters, the end of a legendary run to a pair of swimmers both out of eligibility after this season. There are “last dance” vibes, although we should not expect the Cavaliers to disappear from their elite status, not with Curzan, Moesch, two-time Olympian Katie Grimes and more accomplished swimmers still in the fold. But this might be the end of Virginia’s record-crushing relays. The run continued after Douglass departed — the one year of Jasmine Nocentini racing for the Cavaliers surely helped — but there is no replacing the Walsh sisters.
So enjoy one last dose of swimming history, four days in which the surname Walsh will surely be the most-typed word on the Swimming World website. The Pacific Northwest will be the setting as another set of stunning records are established.
