Thomas Heilman, a 17-year-old Western Albemarle High School student, is heading to the Paris Olympics. Heilman, the two-time Central Virginia boys swimmer of the year, won the men’s 200-meter butterfly championship at the US Olympic swim trials on Wednesday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The Crozet teenager touched the wall in 1:54.
50 to edge Luca Urlando (1:55.08) by a little more than half a second for the title. Heilman, a University of Virginia commit, clocked a time of 1:56.
77 in the prelims, then swam a 1:54.93 in Tuesday’s semifinals to advance to Wednesday’s finals, where he won to become the youngest US male Olympic swimmer since Michael Phelps made the team for the 2000 Sydney Games at age 15. It isn’t the first time that Heilman has been mentioned alongside Phelps.
Last year, at the age of 16, Heilman swam to a second-place finish in the 200 butterfly final at the Phillips 66 National Championships in Indianapolis in a time of 1:54.54, which broke Phelps’ 15-16 national age group record of 1:54.58.
Phelps swam that time in 2001, which at the time was a new world record. The swim earned Heilman a spot on the US swimming team for the FINA World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, making him the first American male swimmer age 16 or younger to qualify for the world championships since Phelps did it in 2001. “I try not to think about it.
I try not to worry about those comparisons too much,” Heilman told reporters of the comparisons to P.
