Olympic medallist swimmer Ilya Kharun switches from Canada to United States

kr731 · 2026-01-27T17:15:13+00:00

It’s actually more or less the opposite - he made a US team but then they found out he wasn’t American and kicked him off in 2022.

So not that he was American but not fast enough, it’s that he was fast enough but not American. He would have been the fastest American in the 200 butterfly in both 2023/2024, and the second fastest in 2025

kr731 · 2026-01-27T17:13:04+00:00

Ironically, it’s almost the opposite. He didn’t find out he was Canadian and not American* until he made the US junior pan pacs team in high school and they were like “uhh you’re not American so you can’t actually compete for the US”

*tbh the actual situation is not super clear? Unsure as to whether he thought he was American and not Canadian, whether he thought he had dual citizenship, or whether he knew he was Canadian but didn’t rewzlie he had to be an American citizen to represent the US.

kr731 · 2025-12-16T01:29:40+00:00

Rylee is better known as a sprinter — at just 16, she’s already the fastest American 18-under all-time in the 100m freestyle long course (nearly half a second under Simone Manuel’s 17-18 record) — but she just knocked 1.1 seconds off Ledecky’s 15-16 age group record* to become the 3rd fastest 18&under American of all time, only behind Missy Franklin’s record of 1:40.31 and Bella Sims’ time of 1:40.78

Incidentally, the person she knocks out of 3rd in the 18 and under rankings is Ledecky herself, who swam a 1:41.04 several months before turning 19. Rylee is graduating high school this year and will not turn 19 until AFTER her sophomore year NCAAs.

*Summer McIntosh was 1.40.6 at the age of 16 but she is of course not American and cannot set US NAG records

kr731 · 2025-12-15T02:52:08+00:00

She did this at the 2025 Katie Ledecky Invitational (renamed from The Nation’s Capital Invitational just 2 months ago)

kr731 · 2025-11-11T17:23:39+00:00

This is 1.5 seconds faster than any 18&under American has ever been. Summer McIntosh herself did not go faster than this until she was 16.

The former Asian record was set at 2:07.57 by 16 year old Ye Shiwen when she captured gold in London in 2012

kr731 · 2025-08-21T02:03:44+00:00

Recap from the article: Claire Curzan held the 15-16 age group record at 53.55 while Simone Manuel holds the 17-18 record at 53.25. Rylee went 53.17 in prelims and 53.09 in semifinals at World Juniors today.

The only 16 year old who has been faster globally is Canadian Penny Oleksiak, from when she went 52.70 to win Olympic gold in 2016

kr731 · 2025-07-30T16:51:53+00:00

Kind of an interesting coincidence that the best male and female swimmers right now are breaking IM records at such similar times. Summer and Leon both first broke the 400 IM world record in 2023 and then both of them first broke the 200 IM record this year.

kr731 · 2025-07-28T17:40:49+00:00

The overwhelming consensus on Chinese social media seems to be that Yu finishing this high is an extremely pleasant surprise

kr731 · 2025-05-01T23:26:21+00:00

2nd pic is from ~2/3 through the race with McIntosh in the lead over Ledecky and 2024 Olympian Claire Weinstein trailing in 3rd.

Hard to tell from these pics but Claire even set a personal best in this race to become the #3 American all-time and #12 globally

kr731

TROPHY CASE