The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials
Licon, Feigen post top-five finishes at U.S. Olympic Trials
06.30.2016 | Men's Swimming and Diving, Women's Swimming and Diving
UT rising senior Will Licon takes a close third in the 200 breaststroke final.
OMAHA, Neb. – Texas rising senior Will Licon and former Longhorn Jimmy Feigen narrowly missed out on U.S. Olympic Team berths and posted top-five finishes Thursday evening on night five of the 2016 U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials.
Licon held fifth place through the opening 50 meters of the 200 breaststroke in 29.24 seconds and climbed to second place at 100 meters in 1:01.45. He held third behind Kevin Cordes and Josh Prenot at the 150-meter mark in 1:34.35.
Prenot passed Cordes and won the event in an American record of 2:07.17 and Cordes took the second qualifying spot for the Rio Olympics in 2:08.00. Licon, only 1.13 seconds shy of the event's four-year-old world record, nearly ran down Cordes but placed third in a personal best of 2:08.14.
Licon's final time would have won him a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics, a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and gold at every Olympics before that. It would have won the 200 breaststroke at every single U.S. Olympic Trials except the current Trials. The U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials date back to 1956.
Former Longhorn Jimmy Feigen placed fifth in the 100 freestyle final at 48.57 and missed an automatic berth on the U.S. Olympic Team for the 4x100m freestyle relay. Feigen, however, likely will receive a Rio invite later in the week as selection procedures are applied to fill out the team, which is capped at 26 men and 26 women.
Former Longhorn Laura Sogar and UT rising sophomore Olivia Anderson competed in the second semifinal heat of the 200 breaststroke and took seventh (2:28.61) and eighth (2:31.08) respectively.
Former Longhorn Austin Surhoff placed fourth in his 200 IM semifinal heat at 1:59.89 but took ninth place overall, one spot shy of the finals.
Day six of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials gets underway Friday at 10 a.m. CT. Live video of prelims and finals will be available at NBCSports.com/Live, and NBC will air Thursday's finals at 7 p.m. CT. The Trials continue through Sunday night.
Meet results are available during the preliminary and finals sessions at OmegaTiming.com.
Players Mentioned
