Canada’s Josh Liendo cruised to his second national title at the NCAA men’s swimming and diving championships on Friday night in Indianapolis.
The Scarborough, Ont., native and Florida swimmer won the 100-yard butterfly on Friday, becoming the first Gator to win the event since 2018, and fourth in program history.
Liendo also won the men’s 50-yard freestyle title on Thursday, just before joining Gator teammates Julian Smith, Macguire McDuff and Adam Chaney to win the 200-yard freestyle relay.
Thinking top of the podium is reserved for Josh Liendo. Another W on day 3️⃣ of <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/NCAASwimDive?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#NCAASwimDive</a> in 100y fly. <a href=”https://t.co/ZkEBOO552f”>pic.twitter.com/ZkEBOO552f</a>
—@SwimmingCanada
Liendo competed in his first Olympics with Canada at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
The 21-year-old told CBC earlier in March that Canada’s male swimming team is “looking good” and has “good momentum” going into the 2024 Olympics this summer in Paris.
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In other action on Friday, Leon Marchand repeated as champion in the 400-yard individual medley, and led Arizona State to its first national relay title.
Marchand went 3:32.12 in the IM for a pool record and his seventh NCAA title. It was a one-two finish for Arizona State with David Schlicht coming in three seconds later.
Marchand later joined Hubert Kos, Ilya Kharun and Jonny Kulow in the 400-medley relay for an NCAA-record time of 2:57.32.
Arizona State held onto the top spot in the team standings after Day 3 with 343 points. Cal is second with 286.5 and Florida third at 273.
Luke Hobson of Texas defended his title in the 200 freestyle with an NCAA-record time of 1:28.81. Brendan Burns of Indiana won the 100 backstroke for the second straight year — this time by just 0.03 seconds over Kacper Stokowski.
Cal’s Liam Bell shattered the NCAA record in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 49.53.
Indiana repeated on the 3-metre dive, claiming a one-two finish with Carson Tyler and Quentin Henninger.
