Burckle Earns Silver Medal on Day Two of U.S. Open
Thursday, July 31, 2008 | Men's Swimming & Diving
Clark Burckle (Louisville, Ky.) raced his way to a second place, silver medal and lifetime-best finish (4:18.40) in the final heat of the 400-meter IM at the 2008 U.S. Open in Minnesota Wednesday. Five other Gators capped off the second day of the five-day meet by advancing to finals of their respective events, complementing the seven career-best swims by Gators on day two.
Joining Burckle in 400 IM action, UF returned two additional swimmers to finals in the event, one woman in Kristen Beales (Arlington, Va.) and one man in Scott Thompson (Birmingham, Mich.). Beales, who headed into finals seated 15th (4:54.15), swam to a time of 4:54.36 (15th) in evening finals, while Laurabeth Guenthner (Wellington, Fla.), who advanced to finals, scratched the finals event after achieving a 19th place career-best finish (4:56.63) in prelims. Thompson went a career-best time in morning preliminaries (4:30.45), a 22nd place seed for finals and returned a 4:35.38, 24th-place finish in the final event. After competing in the 1,500-meter free on day one, rising sophomore Logan Storie (Corvallis, Ore.) also swam a career-best time in prelims of the 400 IM (4:36.35), finishing 42nd overall.
On the backstroke front, Rex Tullius (Port Orange, Fla.) led the way for the Gators in the 200 event, tapping in at 2:00.69 in preliminaries (sixth), qualifying for the A evening final. Tullius raced to an even quicker 2:00.51 (sixth) finals finish, falling shy of his career-best 1:57.73 swim set at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials the first week of July. Kyle Coan (Plantation, Fla.) also represented the men, recording a 26th-place finish with a career-best time of 2:07.66 in the prelims.
Incoming senior Kelsy Smith (Cary, N.C.) was the lone Gator woman to return to finals of the 200 back. Smith recorded a 2:15.77, 20th place career-best finals finish, while UF women Jenne Ballatore (Gainesville, Fla.) and Stacey Nedrud (Melbourne Beach, Fla.) placed 30th and 35th, respectively in prelims of the 200 back. Ballatore clocked in at 2:17.89, two-tenths-of-a-second shy of her Olympic Trials career-best, while Nedrud swam a career-best 2:18.44.
Rounding out the day for the Orange and Blue, Stephanie Napier (Chattanooga, Tenn.) competed in the preliminaries of the 100-meter free, swimming a 57.29, a 35th-place finish.
The highest placing athlete in each event at the U.S. Open, who will be enrolled as a full-time university student through Jan. 1 2009, will be invited to the World University Games Team. The 2009 World University Games will be held from July 2-7, 2009, in Belgrade, Serbia. Additional qualifying procedures can be found online at www.usaswimming.org.
Thursday preliminaries and finals will continue from Minneapolis according to the following schedule:
Thursday 7/31/2008 Preliminaries, 9 a.m. (CST)
Women 400 Free Prelims
Men 400 Free Prelims
Women 100 Fly Prelims
Men 100 Fly Prelims
Thursday 7/31/2008 Finals, 6 p.m. (CST)
Women 400 Free Finals
Men 400 Free Finals
Women 100 Fly Finals
Men 100 Fly Finals
Men 4x200 Free Relay
Follow the 2008 U.S. Open from the Minnesota Aquatic Center live by visiting http://www.starswimming.org/results/usaswimming/index.htm or visit www.GatorZone.com for a recap following each evening finals session.
-UF-
