Complete At-Large Academic All-America Honorees
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Marat Amaltdinov's dual excellence as a student-athlete for Purdue men's swimming & diving has earned the Big Ten breaststroke champion and 2017 graduate Academic All-America honors.
Amaltdinov was selected as a second team Academic All-America honoree by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). As a native of Russia, English is his second language. He still managed to earn his bachelor's degree in just three years, compiling a 3.81 grade-point average as a finance major. He has one year of college eligibility remaining and has already enrolled in a master's of finance program at Purdue.
A two-time Big Ten champion in the 200-yard breaststroke, Amaltdinov is the first men's swimmer at Purdue to earn Academic All-America accolades. He joins diver Jamie Bissett, a two-time honoree as an upperclassman (2014-15), as members of the men's swimming & diving program to be recognized. Swimmers Kimbre Vogel (2007), Christine Inman (2010) and Lauren Gustafson (2013) have been Academic All-America honorees for the women's program.
Amaltdinov joins volleyball's Ashley Evans and basketball's Caleb Swanigan as Boilermakers to be Academic All-Americans this school year. All three were second team honorees. For their athletic accomplishments, Amaltdinov and Swanigan were also first team All-Americans this season.
By repeating as the Big Ten champion in the 200 breast, Amaltdinov became the first Purdue swimmer to accomplish the feat in any event since Louis Paul won three straight 200 individual medley titles from 2003 to 2005.
At the 2017 NCAA Championships, Amaltdinov finished seventh in the 200 breast. The championship final appearance led to his first career All-America honor, becoming Purdue's first men's swimmer to be a full-fledged All-American (top 8) since 2006. He helped the Boilermakers finish in 13th place at the national championship meet, matching the program's highest finish in the modern era.
Amaltdinov is the Boilermakers' program record holder in the 200 breast, establishing a new pool benchmark at the Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center simultaneously when he won the event at the 2016 Big Ten Championships. He led all Purdue swimmers with 12 individual event victories this season. The conference title earned him first team All-Big Ten honors again. He was named Big Ten Swimmer of the Week for the fourth time in his career (Nov. 2) and helped Purdue establish a new program record in the 400 medley relay at the Big Ten Championships.
Amaltdinov advanced to the Academic All-America ballot after being an Academic All-District honoree in district 5 for the second year in a row.
Unlike many team sports, swimming & diving is part of the at-large group for All-America program. Each school is permitted to nominate only three male and three female student-athletes for Academic All-District consideration from sports like swimming & diving, tennis, golf, wrestling, ice hockey and others. Nominees must be sophomores and above with a GPA of 3.30 and higher.
Swimming & diving dominated the Academic All-America men's at-large teams this year. Amaltdinov was one of four swimming & diving honorees on the second team. Headlined by the nine swimming & diving student-athletes on the first team, 16 of the 45 (36 percent) men recognized as Academic All-America honorees in the at-large group this year call the pool home. Wrestling was second with six.
Michigan's PJ Ransford was the other Big Ten swimmer recognized as an Academic All-America honoree this year.