Ben Delmar Pool Record Highlights UNC Invitational
North Carolina’s Ben Delmar set a pool record in the men’s 200 individual medley on Thursday, the first day of the three-day UNC Invitational.
Delmar went 1:43.95 in prelims, downing by .02 seconds the Koury Natatorium record set in 2017 by NC State’s Andreas Vazaios. Delmar also joined Walker Davis, Boyd Poelke and Patrick Hussey in setting the pool record in the 400 medley relay, going 3:05.43 to knock off NC State’s record from 2023 by nearly two seconds. The Wolfpack had gone 3:07.27.
UNC reshuffled its sprint history plenty on the week. Martin Kartavi went 19.41 in prelims of the 50 freestyle, which moved him into second place in program history. That lasted a day, until PJ Foy bested him by going 19.39 in a time trial. Kartavi was second in that, again in 19.41. Foy had led off the 200 free relay in 19.49. Kartavi also went 43.12 in the 100 free, which was second.
Much of the action came in prelims, as with Delmar, or time trials. That included a pair of quality swims from Oleksandr Zheltiakov, the new NC State swimmer clocking in at 46.63 in the 100 back, quicker than his college debut last month, and 1:40.86 in the 200 back.
NC State’s Kaii Winkler won the 100 free in 41.95. That jumps him into ninth in program history. It gives the Wolfpack five swimmers on the current roster with sub-42-second times in college swimming, jumping him .03 ahead of Sam Hoover.
Wells Walker won the 50 free in 19.53. Nolan Dunkel turned in quality time trials, in 47.02 in the 100 back and 47.58 in the 100 fly.
The UNC women’s did in the 200 back what the men did in the 50 free. Emma Karam went 1:52.34 in the 200 backstroke prelims on Saturday, which moved her to third in program history. She displaced Sophia Frei, who’d used a time trial to get into fourth on Thursday in 1:53.10.
