A closer look at the Badgers' Daniel Lester
March 24, 2010 | Men's Swimming & Diving
March 24, 2010
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- With the 2010 NCAA Men's Swimming and Divng Championships kicking off this week, UWBadgers.com takes a look at the Badgers' qualifier for the national meet, freshman Daniel Lester.
Lester begins competition in the NCAA meet Thursday at the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion. Check out a complete preview here.
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Name: Daniel Lester
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia
Year: Freshman
Events: Butterfly/Individual Medley
Previous NCAAs: This is Lester’s first NCAA championships.
NCAA Events: Lester is invited to the NCAA championships in the 200-yard butterfly and the 400-yard individual medley. Lester also received a “B” cut time and will swim the 200-yard individual medley.
Outlook: After an impressive showing at the Big Ten championships last month, Lester will look to put the Badgers on the scoreboard in all three of his events. Going into the championships, Lester is seeded No. 11 in the 200 butterfly. Lester also sits at 22nd in the 400 individual medley and 26th in the 200 individual medley.
Competition: In the 200 fly, the competition will be thick, with four of the top five finishers from 2009 returning. The top seed heading into the championships, Mark Dylla of Georgia, was the runner-up in 2009. Also looking to take the title will be Robert Bollier of Stanford (seeded second, finished fourth in 2009), Daniel Madwed of Michigan (seeded third), and defending national champion Shaune Fraser or Florida.
In the 400 IM, everyone will be looking to catch 2009 national champion and American record-holder Tyler Clary of Michigan. The runner-up from 2009, Gal Nevo of Georgia Tech, will join William Cregar of Georgia and Bryan Collins of Texas in an effort to unseat the defending champion.
Clary, the silver medalist in the 400 IM at the 2009 World Championships, will also be the favorite heading into the 200 IM after the graduation of defending champion Bradley Ally of Florida. Chasing him down will be Fraser, Austin Surhoff of Texas, and Omar Pinzon of Florida.
Head Coach Eric Hansen on Lester: “As a freshman it will be really fun to watch Dan experience a meet of this magnitude, because the NCAAs is a deeper meet than the world championships and the Olympics. For most first-timers it’s a real eye-opener, and for Dan to qualify as a freshman is a pretty big deal. Despite being inexperienced, we feel he can perform well and, with all the hard work he’s done this year, he deserves it.”
Lester on NCAAs: “‘The strongest steel is well-founded self-belief. It’s earned, not given.’ I am going to have fun, swim fast and compete against some of the top swimmers in the world.”
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Ryan Dean
UW Sports Medicine
