NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

T&T swim­mer Nikoli Black­man swam the third leg as the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ten­nessee end­ed the night in record fash­ion in the men’s 200 yards freestyle re­lay in the 2025 NCAA Men’s Swim­ming & Div­ing Cham­pi­onships in Fed­er­al Way, Wash­ing­ton, on Thurs­day night.

Led by 50 yards freestyle win­ner Jor­dan Crooks of the Cay­man Is­lands on the first leg, fol­lowed by Gui Garibe, Black­man and Ba­hami­an Lamar Tay­lor, the Vols quar­tet clocked a pop­ping one minute, 12.84 sec­onds at Wey­er­haeuser King Coun­ty Aquat­ics Cen­tre to shat­ter the cham­pi­onship record of one minute, 13.35, which was held by Flori­da Uni­ver­si­ty.

The Vols quar­tet were out so fast, with Crooks lead­ing off in 17.82, a new ca­reer best, fol­lowed by Caribe with a 17.81 on the sec­ond leg, which put them in­to the 100 yards wall in a blis­ter­ing 35.63.

Fol­low­ing Crooks and Caribe, Black­man was 18.67 on the third leg, and Tay­lor was 18.54 on the an­chor to se­cure the gold medal.

Ari­zona State made it a race at the end, touch­ing sec­ond in one minute, 13.05 sec­onds, which was al­so well un­der the pre­vi­ous cham­pi­onship record and a new pro­gramme record, as well as a Big 12 record, while Flori­da was third in one minute, 13.37 sec­onds.

Last month, at the South­east­ern Cham­pi­onships, the Vols quar­tet al­so shat­tered the NCAA record in both the 200 yards freestyle re­lay (1:12.80) and the 400 yards freestyle re­lay (2:42.41), with both squads made up of Crooks, Caribe, Black­man and Tay­lor.

It was the sec­ond gold medal on the night for Crooks af­ter he got the job done in the 50 yards freestyle, rip­ping a 17.91, just off his ca­reer best of 17.85, which he swam at the SEC Cham­pi­onships last month.

On Thurs­day morn­ing, Black­man failed to ad­vance to ei­ther the A, B or C fi­nal of the men’s 50 yards freestyle.

This was af­ter Black­man, a for­mer World Ju­nior 50m freestyle cham­pi­on, placed 48th best over­all from a field of 60 com­peti­tors in the men’s 50 yards freestyle with a time of 19.51 sec­onds, which was slow­er than his re­cent new per­son­al best of 19.05 sec­onds he es­tab­lished at the South­east­ern Con­fer­ence Swim­ming and Div­ing Cham­pi­onships in Geor­gia last month.

Crooks topped the heats in a flat 18.00 sec­onds, with de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Lien­do, who resided in T&T dur­ing his youth, sec­ond with a time of 18.30, and Caribe, third in a new per­son­al best of 18.34.

Black­man re­turned to the pool yes­ter­day morn­ing in the 200 yards freestyle heats as the 23rd seed­ed swim­mer with a time of one minute, 32.12 sec­onds, but missed out on con­test­ing the A, B or C fi­nal last night when he placed 37th over­all of 42 en­trants in one minute, 33.80 sec­onds.

To­day, Black­man goes in­to the 100 yards freestyle heats ranked 23rd with a time of 41.84 sec­onds and will com­pete as a mem­ber of the 400 yards freestyle re­lay team as well, for which they will en­ter as favourites.

Mean­while, fel­low na­tion­al swim­mer Zarek Wil­son has been list­ed as a re­lay al­ter­nate for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Al­aba­ma but has not suit­ed up for any events as yet for ei­ther the 200 yards freestyle re­lay or the 800 yards freestyle re­lay, with the 400 yards med­ley re­lay to come.