Hinsdale Central Sets National High School Record in 200 Medley Relay
The Hinsdale Central High School 200-yard medley relay enjoyed a big weekend at the Illinois State Championships. During Friday’s preliminaries, the Red Devils established a national high school record, as the foursome of Luke Vatev, Joshua Bey, Henry Guo and Matthew Vatev clocked a time of 1:26.75. That performance broke the previous national record in the medley relay, set at 1:26.88 by Carmel High School in 2022.
On Saturday afternoon, Hinsdale made a run at its own record and put together a time of 1:27.01, which was good for the state title by more than three seconds. New Trier High was second in 1:30.10, with Loyola finishing in third place in 1:30.45.
During the record-breaking performance on Friday, Luke Vatev jumpstarted the relay with a backstroke split of 21.53. Bey followed with a breaststroke leg of 24.04 while Guo went 21.01 on his butterfly leg. The freestyle anchor was handled by Matthew Vatev, who turned in a split of 20.17.
In finals, Luke Vatev opened with a backstroke leg of 21.72 and Bey was timed in 24.01 on the breaststroke. Guo went sub-21 on the fly leg, thanks to a swim of 20.93, and Matthew Vatev closed out the title-winning performance with a freestyle leg of 20.35.
