Records broken on Day 1 in Austin

AUSTIN, Texas - Grand Canyon's NCAA Championships team of senior Daniil Antipov, freshman Florent Janin, sophomore Asahi Nagahata, senior Mark Nikolaev and senior Bogdan Plavin finished a record-setting first day of competition in the 200-yard freestyle and the 400-yard medley relays.

In the 400 medley relay, Nikolaev (44.49), Nagahata (53.73), Antipov (45.35) and Janin (43.17) finished second in their heat and 20th overall in a WAC-record 3 minutes, 6.74 seconds, beating their previous season-best time of 3:08.01. Their time topped the team record of 3:07.48 set by Nikolaev, Youssef El Kamash, Antipov and Mazen El Kamash in 2017. The previous WAC record of 3:07.55 was held by Nikolaev, Youssef El Kamash, Antipov and Mazen El Kamash from the WAC Championships.

Nikolaev's 100 backstroke split of 44.49 set team and WAC records, along with tying him for fifth among all-time college performers in the event.

The 200 freestyle relay team of Plavin, Nikolaev, Janin and Antipov initially finished 11th during preliminaries with a time of 1:17.22, which was .01 slower than its season-best time of 1:17.21 from WAC Championships. The performance would have earned the team a spot in the B final and the honor of being All-American honorable mention, but GCU was disqualified for an early start on an exchange.

The Lopes enter their first individual NCAA events Friday with Antipov swimming the 100 butterfly and Nikolaev in the 100 backstroke.

Antipov ranks 42nd n the nation in the 100 butterfly (46.11), while Nikolaev enters the NCAA Championships with the second-fastest time in the nation in the 100 backstroke at 44.61, which he set at the Hawkeye Invitational in November.

The preliminary rounds for each event will begin at 8 a.m. (Phoenix time) and the finals will start at 4 p.m. (Phoenix time)

Standing-room-only tickets are available for purchase the day of competition and will be sold at the door. Preliminary standing-room-only tickets will be $10 with the finals standing-room-only tickets being $15.

All events will be held at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center off East Martin Luther King Drive, between Trinity and Red River streets (1900 Red River St., Austin, Texas).

Meet Schedule
Friday
400-yard individual medley
100-yard butterfly
200-yard freestyle
100-yard breaststroke
100-yard backstroke
3-meter diving
200-yard medley relay

Saturday
1,650-yard freestyle
200-yard backstroke
100-yard freestyle
200-yard breaststroke
200-yard butterfly
Platform diving
400-yard freestyle relay

For more on GCU swimming and diving, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @GCU_Swimming.

Grand Canyon University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Daniil Antipov

Mazen El Kamash

Youssef El Kamash

Florent Janin

Asahi Nagahata

Mark Nikolaev

Bogdan Plavin

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