Psych Sheet and Full List of NCAA Qualifiers
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Two-time Big Ten breaststroke champion Marat Amaltdinov has earned the right to represent Purdue men's swimming & diving at the NCAA Championships again.
Amaltdinov's winning time of 1:52.89 in the 200-yard breast from the Big Ten Championships ranks seventh nationally. It was an NCAA automatic-qualifying time. He's also seeded 39th in the 100 breast (53.19) and will have an opportunity to race in that event as well. He won the B final of the 100 breast at Big Tens.
Amaltdinov qualified for the NCAA Championships for a third time. However, a year ago he opted to forgo his spot at the national championship meet in order to train for the Russian Olympic Trials. In his first collegiate season, he became the program's first freshman swimmer to qualify for the NCAAs in an individual event since 2006. He finished 29th in the prelims of the 200 breast at the 2015 NCAA Championships.
Divers earn their NCAA berths based on their performances at the Zone Championships. Purdue annually competes at the Zone C meet, which opens Thursday (March 9) in Bloomington, Indiana. Last week, Kaersten Meitz and Taite Kitchel learned they had earned the right to represent the Purdue women at the national championship meet.
Amaltdinov's top-eight national seed makes him among the favorites to qualify for the championship final of the 200 breast. The top eight swimmers in the prelims of an event qualify for the championship final and clinch All-American honors. Giordan Pogioli (200 breast in 2006) was Purdue's last men's swimmer to earn full-fledged All-American accolades with a top-eight finish at NCAAs.
To qualify for an individual event at NCAAs, a men's swimmer's time had to rank among the top 29 to 30 nationally, depending on the event. Once a swimmer qualifies as an individual in any one event, he is also permitted to compete in any other event in which he has an NCAA provisional-qualifying time (B cut).
Amaltdinov became the first Purdue swimmer to repeat as a conference champion since Louis Paul won three straight Big Ten titles in the 200 individual medley from 2003 to 2005. The Boilermakers have now won the 200 breaststroke in three straight seasons after Lyam Dias was the Big Ten champ in 2015. Steele Johnson (platform diving champ) and Amaltdinov teamed up to give the Boilermakers Big Ten gold medalists in both a swimming event and a diving event in the same year for only the second time (2009).
Both the men's and women's national championship meets are being held at the IU Natatorium on the campus of IUPUI in Downtown Indianapolis this season. The men's meet is set for March 22 to 25. Amaltdinov will have his first event March 24.
ICYMI: Watch Marat Amaltdinov repeat as B1G champ in 200 Breast, winning #Purdue's 3rd straight title in the event. https://t.co/RvsRsVXSfi
- Purdue Swim-Dive (@PurdueMSwimDive) February 26, 2017