The 2021 Toyota U.S. Open wrapped up this evening in Greensboro, North Carolina, seeing the talents of Mallory Comerford, Bobby Finke, Katie Ledecky and Regan Smith all finish out their respective sweeps for the competition.

The night kicked off with the 1500-meter freestyle, where Finke and Ledecky mirrored their Tokyo efforts by completing the distance freestyle sweep in their respective field. Finke swam a 15:04.77 to touch first in Greensboro, negative-splitting the final 150 meters and bringing it home in 26.61 in the final length. 

“It felt pretty good until I tried to pick it up at like the last 150,” Finke said. “Then it really started to hurt. Where you know, I think out of all the miles I’ve done that was probably one of the better feeling ones, so I’m really happy with the time.”

Ledecky’s 1500m freestyle featured a time of 15:45.32, which was nearly 35 seconds ahead of the field. She leaves Greensboro with wins in the 200-, 400-, 800- and 1500m freestyle.

“There are a lot of really good things I could learn from this meet,” Ledecky said. “It’ll be great to race in the same pool we’ll be racing in at [the Phillips 66 International Team Trials in April]. You can just kind of visualize it moving forward over the next couple months.” 

Regan Smith again put her stamp on the meet, going a new meet-record time of 2:07.09 in the 200m backstroke to complete the backstroke sweep. Her time was the second-fastest swim she, the former world-record holder, has ever had on American soil. 

Smith would go on to win the 200m butterfly in 2:10.58, giving the Olympic medalist her third win of the meet – good for a title in each of the events she was entered in.

Also completing a sweep was Mallory Comerford. The National Team veteran went 54.74 in the 100m freestyle to give her the second title of her meet following Wednesday’s first-place finish in the 50m freestyle.

“I’m really pleased with where I’m at,” Comerford said. “This meet was really just kind of about that – to see where we’re at in training and racing. So I’m really happy with my results.”

U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Swimming finalist Brandon Fischer nabbed a title in the 200m breaststroke, going 2:13.21 to touch first. The swim is Fischer’s first Toyota U.S. Open title of his career, and his time is the second-fastest he has gone since December 2019.

Also finishing first this evening was Kim Ahryong (2:29.86, 200m breaststroke), Andrej Barna (48.44, 50m freestyle), Vaggelis Makrygiannis (2:00.48, 200m backstroke), Ahryoung Kim (2:29.86, 200m breaststroke) and Minseop Kim (1:59.30, 200m butterfly).

Also wowing the Greensboro crowd was 14-year-old Thomas Heilman, who continued his string of impressive times and finishes this week. He swam a 1:59.87 in this evening’s 200m butterfly, just off Michael Phelps’ 13-14 National Age Group record swim of 1:59.02 that has stood for nearly 22 years. This week alone, Heilman has taken down a 13-14 National Age Group record on six occasions – including breaking his own records in the 50m freestyle and 100m butterfly.

As it stands, Heilman’s National Age Group records are in the 100m butterfly (53.43), 50m freestyle (22.95), 100m freestyle (51.12) and 200m freestyle (1:51.27).

For more information on the 2021 Toyota U.S. Open, visit https://www.usaswimming.org/event/2021/12/01/default-calendar/toyota-u.s.-open.