Rex Maurer Will Aim to Turn College Wins into International Rise
Entering the summer championship season, the U.S. women continue to look like the world’s deepest and most dominant team. They won 18 medals at the Paris Olympics and are now set up for success at the Singapore World Championships following strong showings all-around at the recent Pro Series meet in Fort Lauderdale. Katie Ledecky and Gretchen Walsh each set stunning world records while Regan Smith, Kate Douglass, Torri Huske, Claire Weinstein and other reaffirmed their contending status.
On the men’s side, the results were far less promising. Sure, Bobby Finke got the better of Leon Marchand in the 400 IM, and the Texas-trained trio of Shaine Casas, Luke Hobson and Carson Foster all continued to look strong, but significant holes remain across almost all events. In a meet designed specifically for the U.S. national team, international swimmers won eight out of 17 men’s events. The struggles in the non-freestyle stroke events remained pronounced: aside from Casas’ win in the 50 back, foreigners won the eight remaining evets in backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke.
However, a group of swimmers coming off excellent college seasons did not make the trip to Fort Lauderdale but could provide a key boost to the U.S. men’s hopes in the coming weeks. That group includes sprinter Jack Alexy, butterflyer Luca Urlando and breaststroker Matt Fallon, all Olympians last year, as well as two-time NCAA champion Rex Maurer, coming off a breakout sophomore season with the Longhorns that culminated with a team national title in late March.
Rex Maurer — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
After an up-and-down freshman campaign at Stanford in which he did not score at the NCAA Championships, Maurer transferred to Texas and immediately shined. He broke the American record in the 500 freestyle in November, and at the national meet, he secured individual wins in the 500 free and 400 IM plus a runnerup finish in the 1650 free, and he played a key role in Texas’ runnerup 800 free relay team that swam two seconds quicker than the existing national record.
Before his short course breakthrough, though, Maurer showed promise in long course as he just missed making finals in three events (400 free, 200 free and 200 IM) at the U.S. Olympic Trials before capturing first in the 400 free and 400 IM at the Speedo Summer Championships. His drops in the short pool this season plus the results posted by his training partners are indicative that he could be in store for big performances at U.S. Nationals in early June.
His best chance at reaching the international level will surely come in the freestyle events. The 400 free has been among the weakest events for the U.S. men in recent years; since Kieran Smith won a surprise bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, no one has been close to the top-three at a major international competition. Aaron Shackell and Smith both clocked 3:45s to reach the Paris Games, and while short-course-to-long-course time conversions are certainly imperfect, Maurer’s 4:04.45 in the 500-yard event translates to 3:39.23 in long course.
Is Maurer on track to break the new world record recently established by German’s Lukas Martens? Probably not, but Maurer’s swimming does not suggest he will totally collapse when making the transition to the big pool.
As for the 200 free, at least four swimmers will earn international qualification for relay purposes, and Maurer split 1:29.91 in the 200-yard event for Texas. Only four others split sub-1:30 in the race, including Hobson, and Maurer should be best-positioned of the rest to contend in the long course version of the event. We should get a sense of how Maurer stands in this event as well as the 400 prior to Nationals, with Texas hosting an elite invitational this coming weekend in Austin.
The individual medley events might be tough for Maurer to crack into considering the presence of swimmers like Foster, Casas and Finke plus a weak breaststroke that will hamper Maurer more extensively in the 50-meter pool with half as many pullouts. But his freestyle skills, which produced national high school records and great acclaim as a teenager before this latest run of collegiate ascendancy, could give Maurer his ticket to international waters.
