By Sam Blacker on SwimSwam
Campbell McKean has rocketed up the recruiting rankings this year to slot in at #3, and his improvements in breaststroke since we first ranked the class have been immense.
When we ranked McKean in the way-too-early ranks back in 2023, he made the list at #14. However, that was not due to his breaststroke times but rather his butterfly/IM combo, where he was 48/1:46.8 and 1:46.7/3:52.1. He added a 1:47.3 200 backstroke and 1:39.8200 freestyle with his breaststroke, then a 2:04.8, looking his weakest stroke – he was only 57.1 in the 100 as well.
In fact, breaststroke was the only stroke that wasn’t mentioned in his listing – his times in fly, back, free, and IM events were all there, but no breaststroke.
He stayed at #14 in the junior rankings last year, but again this was primarily for his butterfly and IM times in yards. He had dropped nearly four seconds in the 100 breast to come in at 53.36, but only ranked third in the class – still a massive drop from the year before , but not one that would indicate a star.
However the signs were there during the 2023-24 long course season. McKean hacked nearly four seconds from his best of 1:04.73 between March and June, where he went 1:01.00 to finish 21st at Olympic Trials. He went on to take silver at the Junior Pan Pacs later that summer in 1:01.13, finishing five-hundredths behind another teenager who is making waves in breaststroke right now – Shin Ohashi.
In his senior season his breaststroke came into it’s own in the short pool, where he now ranks first in the recruiting class of 2025 in both the 100 (51.28) and 200 (1:53.54). He has had a meteoric rise from ranking 149th for the season in the 15-16 age group in the 100 breast just two years ago. He’s the third-fastest 17-18 in history now, just over a tenth slower than Reece Whitley and Michael Andrew were in 2018.
He translated that into long course once again in 2025, setting bests in the 50 (27.40) and 100 (1:00.40) at the Pro Swim Series in May, before obliterating those times just a month later to win U.S. Nationals in 26.9/58.96. The latter of those makes him the youngest person in history to break 59 seconds in the long course 100 breaststroke, and makes him a strong contender in a reduced field at this year’s World Championships in Singapore.
Over the last 24 months, McKean has grown from a solid breaststroker into the leading light for the U.S. men’s National Team in the stroke, and that’s clear to see when we look at his personal best times compared to the top of the 2025 recruiting class over the last three years.
Yards
Meters
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