U.S. Nationals: Tight Finals Expected Friday Night (Heat Sheet)
Women and men will each swim three events, the 400 freestyle, 100 breaststroke and 100 backstroke, on night four of the 2025 U.S. National Championships. The five-day meet is being held at the IU Natatorium, the cathedral of swimming, in downtown Indianapolis.
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In the women’s 400 freestyle, American-record holder Katie Ledecky cruised to a 4:03.16 to take the top seed in the championship final. Ledecky comes into the final four seconds ahead of second seed Claire Weinstein. Ledecky remains the favorite to win another national title in the 400 and Weinstein holds an advantage over the rest of the field. Erin Gemmell, the third seed after prelims, opted to scratch. Olympian Bella Sims will look to break up the expected top-two pairing. It took 4:12.13 to make the championship final.
In the men’s event l6-year-old Luka Mijatovic continues to make record0breaking look easy. He opened up his Friday morning with a new 15-16 NAG Record on the way to taking the top-seed position in the final this evening. Olympians Luke Hobson, David Johnston and Kieran Smith highlight a stacked field that also includes NCAA champion Rex Maurer, who made the team earlier in the week in the 200 freestyle.
Swimming in different preliminary heats, Kate Douglass and Lilly King will battle it out in the final of the 100 breaststroke . Douglass has a three tenth edge over King after her morning swim. Other Olympians fill out the final including Emma Weber, who finished second in the event at last summer’s Olympic Trials and Gabrielle Rose. Rose, the 47 year-old Olympian, makes her first major championship final in over 20 years, after two semi-finals appearances at the 2024 Trials.
Josh Matheny got to the wall the quickest in the prelims of the men’s 100 breaststroke, swimming a 59.80. Less than a second separates the rest of the field, which includes Campbell McKean who made the World Championship team in the 50 breaststroke on Thursday night and Jassen Yep, the Indiana walk-on who made history when he won the 200 breaststroke at NCAAs in March.
A stacked women’s 100 backstroke is led by world-record holder Regan Smith, who swam a 58.06 just ahead of new 50 back American-record holder Katharine Berkoff. Two other Olympians, Phoebe Bacon and Claire Curzan, comprise a deep field where it took a sub-one-minute swim at 59.64 to reach the championship final.
In the men’s event, Daniel Diehl leads the way after a 53.33 preliminary swim, he has a slight two-hundredths edge over Jack Aikins. The third and fourth seeds in Hudson Williams and Keaton Jones made the final after big swims from outside lanes, both dropping just over 1.7 seconds to make the championship final.
