Ultra swimmer of the month: Chris Guiliano

Ultra Swim Swimmer of the Month is a recurring SwimSwam feature that spotlights a U.S. swimmer who has excelled over the past month. As with any award, Swimmer of the Month is a subjective exercise that aims to highlight an athlete whose work has notable context—perhaps a swimmer who visibly outperformed other swimmers during the month, or one whose accomplishments got lost among other high-profile swim meets. If your favorite athlete wasn’t selected, please feel free to respectfully recognize them in our comments section.

At the US Olympic Qualifiers in Paris, only four swimmers qualified for three individual events. On the list is the best swimmer we have ever seen, Katie Ledeckymultiple individual world champion Kate Douglas And Regan SmithAnd Chris Guiliano.

Guiliano was expected to compete for an individual spot in the men’s 100m freestyle, but he was not considered a favorite to reach the final in either the 50m or 200m freestyle, finishing as 10th and 29th seeds respectively.

However, the 21-year-old showed an incredible performance during the nine-day competition at Lucas Oil Stadium, finishing in second place behind Luke Hobson in the 200m freestyle in a time of 1:45.38, more than three seconds faster than his personal best before the competition. Guiliano finished with a personal best of 1:48.75, set just a month earlier, and improved it to 1:46.83 in the heats.

In the 100-meter freestyle, his main event, Guiliano set a new personal best of 47.25 in the semifinals, beating his previous best of 47.49 in February. This put him in first place in the final, ahead of the newly crowned US Open record holder Jack Alex—who ran 47.08 seconds in the preliminary round—and reigning Olympic champion Caeleb Dressel.

Under great pressure in the final, Guiliano finally emerged as the winner. He achieved a time of 47.38 seconds, ahead of Alexy (47.47) and Dressel (47.53). In this extremely fast race, the first six runners all remained under 48 seconds.

Guiliano finished the competition by setting the three fastest swimming times of his career in the 50-meter freestyle. He improved his best time in the heats from 21.96 to 21.83, managed a time of 21.59 in the semifinals and achieved a time of 21.69 in the final, securing the second Olympic place behind Dressel (21.41), narrowly beating Matt Koenig (21.70) and Alexy (21.76).

Guiliano’s progress

The rising senior from Notre Dame became the first American since Matt Biondi in 1988 to qualify to represent the United States at the Olympic Games in the men’s 50, 100 and 200 freestyle swimming events.

Guiliano’s performances in qualifying for the Olympics in Indianapolis come after he gained his first taste of the international stage last year, when he won bronze with the U.S. men’s 400m freestyle relay and finished 18th in the 100m freestyle at the 2023 World Championships.

Last season at Notre Dame, the Douglassville, Pennsylvania native was in top form, capturing the ACC titles in the men’s 50, 100 and 200 freestyle before finishing in the top five in all three events at the NCAAs, leading the Fighting Irish to their program’s best performances ever in both events.

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