Lebanon Swimmer wins 4 events at Spring Fling Meet
April 26, 2009….It was the first Long Course swim meet of the year; it was the Excel Aquatics Spring Fling Invitational in Brentwood TN. Long Course meets are held in 50 Meter pools, as compared to Short Course meets which are held in 25 Yard pools. The Olympics and most international meets are held in the Long Course format.
Lebanon High’s Bradley Gillilan, participating for Excel Aquatics, swam to victories in the Senior Boy’s 400 Meter Individual Medley (IM), 400 Meter Freestyle, 100 Meter Breaststroke and 800 Meter Freestyle.
The 400 Meter IM consists of 100 Meters each of Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, and Freestyle, in that order. Due to the distance, it allows those who may be weak in one stroke to be able to make up for the deficiency in other strokes.
In the IM, Gillilan was in 4th place after the Butterfly leg, and moved up into 2nd after the Backstroke, trailing by only 40-hundreths of a second. During the pullout phase at the beginning of the Breaststroke leg Gillilan looked left and made eye contact with the teammate he was trailing, who also happened to be looking over to see where Gillilan was. Gillilan at that point knew the race was his to win. Gillilan blasted out to a lead of 7.69 seconds after the Breaststroke and cruised home in four minutes 58 seconds and 91-hundreths (4:58.91), winning by over 5 seconds. The time was a personal best time for Gillilan, besting his old mark by 6.76 seconds.
“Bradley is one of the top distance freestylers in Tennessee, and as such has the confidence he can wear down the competition in the 400 Meter IM”, Excel Coach John Barnes explained. “He swam the race smart, and we knew that if he was close after the backstroke, then he had an excellent chance to win.”
“It’s all about strategy and then executing that strategy.”
In the 400 Meter Freestyle, Gillilan was seeded second going into the event, and was ahead at the first turn (50 Meter split) by 9-hundreths of a second, the closest anyone would be to him. After that he took over the race and never looked back. Gillilan had a full body length lead and a 1.92 second lead after the 200 Meter split. Gillilan won in a time of 4:19.18, a 3.27 second margin of victory.
“The 400 Meter time was about a half-second over his best time”, Barnes commented. “That is not a problem; he is exactly where we expect him to be at this point in training. He will improve as the summer progresses.”
The 100 Meter Breaststroke was a surprise victory, touching out the competition by less than a second. Gillilan turned a personal best time in the event, finishing with a 1:17.29, good enough for a Southeastern Swimming Long Course Championship Meet qualifying time.
“With the performance in the 100 Breaststroke, Bradley now has 9 qualifying times for the SES LC Championships, to go along with his 3 cuts for the Summer Senior Sectionals, 3 cuts for the NCSA Junior Nationals, and 2 cuts for the USA-Swimming Junior Nationals.”
The final event of the meet was the 800 Meter Freestyle, and Gillilan was in firm control of the event the entire distance, winning by over 7 seconds and finishing in a time of 8:52.07.
“The second seeded swimmer in the 800 is a talented kid and a fantastic competitor, and we have seen him make a charge in the back half of distances races before, and Bradley went into the swim aware of that. As a result Bradley conserved energy on the first half of the race for a second-half charge that never materialized by the other swimmer, thus his time was a little off his best.”
Gillilan also placed in the Senior Boy’s 200 Meter IM (2nd Place); 200 Meter Freestyle (4th Place); 200 Meter Breaststroke (4th Place); 100 Meter Butterfly (5th Place); and the 100 Meter Freestyle (8th Place).
The next Long Course meet is May 29-31 in Brentwood TN at the Williamson County Indoor Sports Complex.
For more information on swimming options for Wilson County residents, visit www.SwimWilsonCounty.com.
