Is it possible to improve THAT fast?

1500M in 18 min is just 1.x min over world record time. Some people are fast bloomers

But "a Lannister always pays his debts." Gold star for whoever gets the reference! Would that be Tyrion or Jaime? Gold is the color for Lannisters!

That's sick fast, but possible given his age of 21 and competative cycling. The only missing ingredient is near perfect form and a feel for the water. The time drops are huge for the first year, even first three years, then they flatten quickly. What's his 400IM time?

Maybe his mother had a one night stand with an Australian 1500 medalist! Once this guy started swimming, genetics kicked in, hardcore!!! ( I kid!) I went from a 19:25 LCM free in May 2009 to a 18:24 in Aug. 2009 but I really had to bust my hump and the Aug 1500 LCM free was tapered. 18 minutes in one year is pretty phenomenal.

I believe it's possible. He seems to have been quite fit beforehand. He has bicycled with the likes of Lance Armstrong. There's a kid on my team who started swimming at age 16 coming up on two years ago now. He's probably 18 now and he is the fastest guy on the Senior team (which he has been so for about seven months, I'd say). My team isn't a slow one, either. And what did he do right before swimming? Track, cross country. :) As compared to someone like myself, who did practically everything (especially if it was individual) when I was 7-13 years old, and then high school came when I buried my nose in books and writing and let the internet consume me, and I completely dropped any semblance of physical activity altogether until I was 20 years old. I have had and still have a lot of debts to pay off. But "a Lannister always pays his debts." Gold star for whoever gets the reference!

Hooray! Someone else here gets it! :D I think it's both... but I like it better when it comes out of Tyrion's mouth.

I would have to have video proof or results from a swim meet to make sure this guy wasn't just gloating for the sake of gloating.

a friend of mine wrote a song called "the older I get the better I used to be" maybe his story morphed overtime, it's difficult to improve that much

I just posted on his blog asking which meet he did this in. I'm not buying it. I agree. Maybe he meant that he almost cut his time in half. I could buy into him getting down to 20 minutes, but not under 18.

Is this for long course, Chris? What about short course, or heck, even the 1650? One of the guys in that list, Chris Krupiarz, was a teammate and friend of mine in age group swimming! Yes, it was LCM. For SCM that year there were only 9 swimmers, none faster than 20 minutes: Terence W Kerrigan 22 20:27.50 Michael A Bell 21 20:42.62 Joey Lee 22 20:44.80 Curt McLellan 24 23:19.73 Craig Conner 23 23:30.66 Stuart A Barton 22 23:48.10 George A Klamo 22 26:06.15 James A Weis 21 26:13.63 Greg Matteck 23 32:52.24 Here are all the TT times recorded for that age group under 18 min: Jeff Poppell 23 16:15.25 1993 Brad Winsor 24 16:18.65 1995 David Spires 22 16:39.09 2005 Andy Nonaka 24 16:48.74 2003 Travis J Carranza 23 17:02.39 2007 Michael D Collins 23 17:03.17 1989 Jay Griffin 21 17:04.97 1996 Matt Grahn 23 17:12.50 1995 James Boegman 24 17:43.37 1988 Ryan White 22 17:44.22 1996 John C Scurlock 24 17:49.06 1989 Max R Biessmann 23 17:57.10 2008 Alexander Payne 24 17:58.12 2008 Travis J Carranza 24 17:58.92 2008 In SCY, the TT times in 1990 for the 1650 were Michael D Collins 24 17:05.44 Mike Lotz 24 17:27.98 Paul A Eure 24 17:38.00 Richard J Wills 20 18:43.57 Paul Von Destinon 23 18:43.75 Steve Plamondon 24 18:49.73 Mark O Smith 22 18:58.27 Steven G Behrens 23 19:19.26 Thorsten Anderson 23 19:35.68 John W Armfield 24 20:03.01 There were many people (70+) in the TT in that age group who have been faster than 18 minutes in the 1650 over the years, so I won't list them all. But I didn't see his name in any Top Ten listing for the 1650 or 1500 in any course. BUT...Tom is right in that, if he swam in a Recognized meet but wasn't a USMS member, his time wouldn't appear in the TT. Heck, there are lots of official USMS times that weren't submitted for TT consideration, especially 20 years ago. I know for a fact that some years, my predecessor TT Recorders in Virginia would fail to submit times. So all I can say is that I am unable to confirm that his time ever appeared in the official USMS Top Ten, which isn't quite the same thing as saying he never did it (an "absence of proof is not proof of absence" type of thing.)