Potamic Valley Swimming 2024 Long Course Championship for over 13s

While much of the world was preparing for the Paris Olympics, Potamic Valley LSC hosted the 2024 13+ Long Course Championships. Hosted by Occoquan Swimming (OCCS) at the Jeff Rouse Swim & Sports Center in Stafford, Virginia, the four-day competition featured many of the region’s fastest 13-year-olds competing.

Rockville Montgomery Swim Club Jeremiah Germosenjust 13 years old, wowed the crowd and the national rankings with a time of 24.30 in the 50-yard freestyle. The young man had entered the competition with a personal best of 25.47 and beat that mark by an impressive 0.31, swimming 25.16 in the heats, but he exploded in the final, beating that mark by a further 0.86 and stopping the clock at 24.30.

With this time he rises to 67th place in the national age rankings of 13 to 14 year olds with Greg Brocato And Blake TeBeestGermosen is only 13 and has at least another year to advance further in the NAG. Thomas HeilmanThe top spot is 22.95.

The Rockville Montgomery swimmer’s best time is the ninth fastest time in his age group this season and is the only fastest time among 13-year-olds. Germosen was able to repeat that feat in the short-course version of the meet, where he tops the list with a time of 21.88.

Germosen’s personal bests were not limited to the freestyle events. In addition to the 100 m freestyle in 55.90 seconds, he also achieved new personal bests in the 100 m breaststroke (1:16.09), 100 m butterfly (1:01.58) and 200 m individual medley (2:23.48). Despite his remarkable swimming performance, Germosen only finished in second place. Finn O’Shea from the Nation’s Capital Swim Club beat Germosen in the 50-meter dash by a razor-thin margin of 0.01 seconds. Both beat the resident record of 24.56 seconds set by Brock Park in 2004.

O’Shea, whose team won the meet off Rockville 1080 to 674, also set a new personal best in the 50 freestyle and is ranked 63rd in the NAG rankings. The 14-year-old also won the 100 freestyle (54.18, 53.48 in the prelims) and 100 backstroke (1:01.70) and took 5th in the 100 butterfly (1:00.28).

The pair were not the only ones to climb the NAG rankings, as Dragon Swim Team Justin Shi14, has won every event he has entered but has posted several personal bests, including a 200m individual medley time of 2:09.22 that ranks 43rd among 13-14 year olds. His 100m butterfly time of 56.51 would put him 34th had he not swum a 55.96 earlier in the season, a time that ranks him 21st fastest all-time. Shi was the male winner with the most points, earning 140 points.

The excitement was not limited to the men’s 50 m freestyle, however. In the women’s event, All Star Aquatics’ KaiLi Ji (14) won by a wide margin. Her time of 26.69 was over half a second faster than the second-placed athlete’s time of 27.22 and earned her 18th place among 13- to 14-year-olds this season.

Ji also won the 100 m freestyle in 59.71 and achieved two more podium finishes: he took third place in both the 200 m individual medley (2:30.02) and the 100 m backstroke (1:09.20), both of which appear to be personal bests.

NCAP Jilly Shifflett took second in the 50-yard freestyle. Like Germosen, she is only 13 and is in the top group of 13-year-olds this season, as her new personal best of 27.22 puts her in 12th place this season. Shifflett was part of the winning NCAP teams in the 200 freestyle relay and 200 medley relay, finishing as the anchor with splits of 26.84 and 27.29, respectively.

While Ji and Shifflett set time records in their event host team, Ariana Aldeguer went home as the best swimmer of the competition with 122 points. Aldeguer cleaned up in the longer events, winning the 200 individual medley (2:29.61), 400 individual medley (4:17.82) and 200 butterfly (2:23.98). He also took 2nd place in the 400 freestyle (4:37.41) and 3rd place in the 800 freestyle (9:42.27).

Similar to the men’s competition, NCAP took the competition title with 1520 points, more than three times the score of second-place All-Star Aquatics with 472 points and third-place Rockville, who were just behind them with 471 points.