Sandeno Wins Two Races at Meet of Champions

Fresh off of her narrow victory in the 200-meter breaststroke race over 14-year-old Kristen Caverly, Kaitlin Sandeno spoke like a hardened swimming veteran.

“I was joking with my teammates before the race that I couldn’t let a 14-year-old beat me,” Sandeno said. “She’s a young’un, but in the world of swimming it doesn’t matter.”

Sandeno let her experience take over in the close race. After all, she’s a worldly 16 years old.

Sandeno continued her winning ways at the Swim Meet of Champions at the Marguerite Swim Complex in Mission Viejo Saturday afternoon. Besides the 200 breaststroke, Sandeno won the 400 individual medley by more than five seconds. On Thursday Sandeno won the 800 freestyle, and on Friday she won the 400 freestyle and finished second in the 200 butterfly.

Sandeno was expected to win the 400 individual medley, but in the breaststroke she kept everyone in suspense until midway through the final stretch. Caverly had the best time in the preliminaries earlier in the day, and held a small lead throughout the championship final. But in the final 25 meters Sandeno overtook Caverly and won by 35 hundredths of a second.

Caverly said she just ran out of energy in the final leg of the race.

“[Sandeno] is a really good swimmer and she’s doing awesome at this meet,” said Caverly, who finished fourth in the 400 individual medley. “It’s going to be hard for me to get up with her on these events. With the breaststroke I think it’s possible, but in the [individual medley], I don’t know.”

Sandeno leads all women in the overall standings for the meet with 97 points, far ahead of Jamie Cail, who is second with 65.

The leader on the men’s side is Chad Carvin, who won the 200 freestyle and finished second in the 400 individual medley. Carvin has 104.5 points, followed by Mark Warkentin with 83.

Carvin won the 200 freestyle despite having the fourth-best time in the preliminaries.

The closest race of the day was the men’s 50 freestyle. Bart Kizierowski won with a time of 23.09 seconds, beating the meet record of 23.23 seconds set by Steve Grams. Jason Lezak also broke the previous meet record, but had to settle for second place with his time of 23.21.

Kizierowski struggled in the preliminaries for the event, but the key to winning the 50-meter race may have come when he dropped out of the 200 freestyle after not qualifying for the championship final. That allowed him to concentrate on the 50-meter event, and in the final he bettered his preliminary time of 23.63 by over a half-second.

“I’m training pretty hard right now, so I didn’t expect a time that fast,” said Kizierowski.

In the other individual events, Jana Krohn won the women’s 200 freestyle with a time of 2:05.26, Ashley Tappin won the women’s 50 freestyle with a time of 26.55 seconds, Ratapong Sirisanont won the men’s 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:22.44, and Torwai Sethsothorn won the men’s 400 individual medley with in 4:27.76.