USA Swimming Names 18 & Under World 100 List
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – USA Swimming today announced its 2019 18 & Under World 100 list. The complete world ranking list consists of 299 American male swimmers and 338 American female swimmers.
Heading the list of top-ranked performances are United States National Team members Regan Smith (Lakeville, Minn./Riptide Swimming) and Luca Urlando (Sacramento, Calif./DART Swimming). Smith’s top performance came via her world-record setting 200-meter backstroke performance at the 2019 FINA World Championships, while Urlando earns top spot by way of his 200m butterfly at the 2019 TYR Pro Swim Series at Clovis, California.
The 18 & Under World 100 List is a reflection of the strength of USA Swimming’s future,” USA Swimming Director of the National Junior Team Mitch Dalton said. “While the National Junior Team is determined based on an all-age world ranking, the World 100 offers an apples-to-apples comparison of how our developmental-aged athletes compare to their international peers.
The 18 & Under World 100 is a ranking of the best 18 & Under swimmers in the U.S., according to their 18 & Under, Age-Defined World Ranking according to USA Swimming. The goal of the program is to acknowledge the excellence achieved by our best 18 & Under athletes, their coaches who lead them and their clubs who support them. The athlete must be a registered USA Swimming member at the time of the qualifying performance and must be eligible to represent the U.S. in International competition as of September 1, 2018. The athlete must be 18 or under on September 1, 2018 (born on, or after, September 2, 1999).
This year’s list features a handful of previous World 100 selections who have gone on to earn U.S. National Team selections, including Carson Foster (Montgomery, Ohio/Mason Manta Rays), Gretchen Walsh (Nashville, Tenn./Nashville Aquatic Club) and Torri Huske (Arlington, Va./Arlington Aquatic Club). The list also consists of all 45 swimmers who represented Team USA in Budapest, Hungary at the 2019 FINA World Junior Championships. The team totaled 18 gold and 37 total medals at the competition, marking the highest respective medal counts ever recorded by a team at the Junior competition.
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