Story Links BALTIMORE — Boris Milev shattered a 21-year-old pool record established by Michael Phelps while the UMBC Men’s Swimming squad reset seven different pool records on Saturday against Frostburg State and Mount St. Mary’s. Milev was the lead swimmer on the 400 Free Relay and his 100 time of 44.74 eclipsed Phelps’ UMBC Aquatic Complex […]
BALTIMORE — Boris Milev shattered a 21-year-old pool record established by Michael Phelps while the UMBC Men’s Swimming squad reset seven different pool records on Saturday against Frostburg State and Mount St. Mary’s.
Milev was the lead swimmer on the 400 Free Relay and his 100 time of 44.74 eclipsed Phelps’ UMBC Aquatic Complex record of 45.11 that had been in place since 2003. He was joined in the relay by Sean Neils, Christian Coleman, and Bode Neale to wrap up with a new pool record time of 3:00.23, surpassing the previous record of 3:02.66 established by UMBC in 2020.
“Our pool has a rich history filled with Olympic Champions and world record holders,” remarked head coach Matt Donovan. “To compete alongside them today is a tremendous privilege. This team excels at rising to challenges. Achieving ten for ten (overall) on pool relay records was an ambitious goal, and we accomplished it. This was a complete team effort. Every individual on this team played a role in our triumph today. I couldn’t be prouder of this collective. What an incredible day to be a Retriever!”
In the opening race of the meet, the 200 Medley Relay team comprising Ryan Harding, Coleman, Oliver Gassmann, and Neils triumphed in 1:28.76, breaking the former record of 1:30.40 set by UMBC in 2018.
Milev would again set a pool record while leading off a relay, as his starting 200 Free time in the 800 Free Relay of 1:38.31 reset the previous top mark held by Ilya Rattsev at 1:39.62 from 2020. Andrew McEachern, Neale, and Marko Kovacic would follow Milev in the relay to achieve a new pool record time of 6:39.45, obliterating the previous record of 6:44.84 set by UMBC in 2020.
Neils, Coleman, Gassmann, and Neale set a new pool record in the 200 Free Relay with a time of 1:21.93, which had previously been held by UMBC in 2022 (1:22.98).
In the subsequent event, Kovacic, Coleman, Gassmann, and Milev then established a new pool record in the 400 Medley Relay with a time of 3:18.60, beating the mark set by UMBC in 2020 at 3:21.64.
UMBC will take over a month off before facing La Salle in Philadelphia on January 17th.
