By Sophie Kaufman on SwimSwam
College swimming fans, we are so back.
It’s been a while since our last digest and in past seasons, going into hibernation for the first two weeks of January wouldn’t have meant that much–there wouldn’t have been that much going on as teams would have been coming out of holiday training and finishing up a big block of training that would push them towards the start of the postseason next month.
But this season? Friends, it means that we’re playing catchup. There’s been a lot of news in the college swimming space already for 2026, and we’re going to try to hit as much as we can. Let’s go.
Midseason Additions Arrive On Campus
One of the reasons that January can no longer be considered a write-off month in the NCAA season is because of the increasing focus on recruiting a big name in time to add them to the postseason roster. It’s become a crucial part of recruiting as the league’s top teams scramble to maximize their points at the NCAA Championships. Whether these swimmers only agreed to arrive in the back half of the year or eligibility and visa processes took a long time, January is often when we see these high-powered recruits dive in with their new teams for the first time.
Mizuki Hirai (photo: Jack Spitser)
This season, there’s no shortage of big names making their NCAA debuts in the middle of the season. Though the mid-season addition period typically skews international, perhaps the biggest name joining the league at the halfway point of the 2025-26 season is U.S. Olympian Alex Shackell. Shackell maintains a hybrid schedule between training with her college team, Indiana, and her club team, Carmel. She impressed at her first collegiate meet as Indiana narrowly lost to Michigan, breaking the Indiana school record in the 200 butterfly (1:50.72) and winning the 100 butterfly (50.98).
Other Olympians are also joining the NCAA this month, including Mizuki Hirai and Anastasia Gorbenko. Hirai should make her college dual meet debut for Tennessee this weekend, while Gorbenko already contributed to Louisville’s sweep of Missouri at the beginning of the month. The Cardinal women also added Swedish distance swimmer Thilda Hall, who raced the 400/800/1500 freestyle at the 2025 World Championships. Though this is Gorbenko’s first season competing for Louisville, she is listed as a sophomore as she burned a year of eligibility during the enrollment period the NCAA implemented as part of the eligibility process for athletes who previously competed in the ISL.
Out in the desert, Arizona State is maintaining its connection to the Dauphins Toulouse OEC, despite Leon Marchand no longer racing for the team. The Sun Devil women landed 18-year-old sprinter Albane Cachot, the reigning European junior champion in the 100m freestyle. She won the 50/100/200 freestyle (22.43/49.11/1:46.38) in her NCAA debut, helping the team defeat Grand Canyon University. She’s a huge pickup for the ASU women, a team aiming to keep using improved relays to drive a push up the NCAA Championship standings.
Notable Records And All-Time Relay Split Updates
School Records
Michal Chmielewski took the sting out of USC’s defeat to Cal this past weekend by breaking the Trojan men’s 100 butterfly school record. Olympian Santo Condorelli had held the record at 45.12 since 2018; Chmielewski chopped four-hundredths off the mark with a personal best 45.08. Chmielewski rattled the record at the 2025 Texas Hall of Fame Invitational two months ago, swimming a 45.15 to move up to second-fastest in USC history.
Freshmen Max Carlsen (NC State) and Falemana Tuufi (Kentucky) have also written their names into their programs’ record books this month. Carlsen broke the Wolfpack’s 1000 freestyle record, rewriting Lance Norris’ mark of 8:43.60 from 2024. Carlsen swam 8:42.38, pushing forward a storied distance program that has scored more points in the men’s 1650 freestyle at the last 10 NCAA Championships combined than any other Division I school. On the other end of the freestyle spectrum, Tuufi broke his own Kentucky 50 freestyle mark, improving from 19.25 to 19.20.
Though Georgia Tech lost to Alabama in their duel (more on that later), junior Vivien Rothwell highlighted the team’s day by clipping her 100 backstroke school record with a 52.72.
Pool Records
Ivy League action continues at a breakneck pace; several of the Ancient Eight’s teams are still undefeated in conference dual meets, and the Dual Meet Tournament will likely come down to the HYP meet at the end of this month to decide a winner. During a quad meet hosted by Navy, Mitchell Schott, one of the biggest mid-major breakouts of last season, took down the Lejeune Hall pool record that had been held by Michael Phelps since 2009. The Princeton Tiger swam a 1:32.72, bettering Phelps’ longstanding record of 1:33.14. He was just a second off his lifetime best, a 1:31.63 from the 2025 Men’s Ivy League Championships.
Mitchell Shott(photo: Jack Spitser)
Schott’s teammate Patrick Dinu also swam a pool record, swimming a 42.59; meanwhile, across the country, another swimming superstar had a pool record erased as Andy Dobrzanski took down Leon Marchand’s Mona Plummer Aquatic Center mark in the 100 breaststroke. Dobranzski’s lifetime best performance of 51.00 clipped Marchand’s pool record by a hundredth and his previous PB by .13 seconds.
Alabama senior Emily Jones was instrumental in the Crimson Tide’s win over Georgia Tech, contributing to three Alabama Aquatic Center records. She led off the women’s 400 medley relay in 51.29, bettering the 2008 mark of 51.57 from Florida’s Gemma Spofforth. Jada Scott (1:00.72), Gaby Van Brunt (50.86), and Cadence Vincent (46.80) followed Scott on the medley relay, combining for a 3:29.67 to soar under Texas’ mark of 3:32.85 from 2023.
Jones and Vincent also contributed 21.83 and 21.49 50 freestyle relay splits to the pool record-breaking 200 freestyle relay. Charlotte Rosendale (22.32 lead off) and Tessa Giele (21.89) rounded out the squad as they swam to a new pool record of 1:27.53, ensuring Giele’s impact was felt in her Alabama debut. The Alabama men also put a new mark on the record books as the 400 medley relay of Tommy Hagar (45.87), Noah Saylor (53.20), Sean Niewold (45.08), and Zarek Wilson (43.13) swam 3:07.28, eclipsing Florida’s 3:08.57 from 2008.
All-Time 100 IMs & Relay Splits
Torri Huske (photo: Jack Spitser)
The Big 12 sectional meets (West and East) played very well this month. The Sun Devils cleaned up at the West edition of the meet in preparation for the Big 12 Championships next month. Once again, the men’s team was led by junior Ilya Kharun, who continues to perform phenomenally in-season. At this meet, it was his relay splits that stood out; Kharun split a 19.12 50 butterfly on the 200 medley relay then followed up with a 43.16 100 butterfly split.
Those two times both rank 9th all-time, with the 50 butterfly split tying Kharun’s mark from the 2024 ASU vs. Cal vs. Stanford dual meet. The most notable thing about these performances might not be the times, but that they emphasize just how consistent a force Kharun has been on the Sun Devils’ relays. Kharun now owns six of the top 10 spots on the all-time 50 butterfly list and four of the top 10 100 butterfly times.
Finally, Torri Huske ripped a 52.56 100 IM personal best at Stanford’s dual meet against UCLA last Friday. The 100 IM has historically been a difficult event to track an all-time list for, but per our records this swim makes her the third-fastest woman in event history behind Kate Douglass and Gretchen Walsh.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: 2025-26 NCAA Digest: Midseason Additions Get The Second Semester Off To A Hot Start
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