Columbia senior Hannah Galey will readily admit that she had a lackluster swim in the 50 Free.
Second place a year ago, Galey hiccuped in the preliminaries and was left out of the championship final during the Thursday program. Dartmouth’s Hillary Preston, you may remember, went on to finish that race in one of the great upsets in Ivy Swimming & Diving Championships history.
But in the 100 Free, Galey was out to settle the score. A year ago she was also the runner-up in the 100 Free, .2 behind Princeton’s Brett Shiflett. Qualifying first for the finals, Galey churned out a 50.19 time.
During the nightcap, she would have the Lane 4 assignment, and the vantage point to see all of her competition. With redemption on her mind, the Columbia senior dove off the blocks and found herself at 24.08 for the 50y mark. She was under the clip necessary to break a meet record that had been on the books since 1990 (Jennifer Boyd, Brown — 49.68), but it would take the 50 of her life to pull it off.
Clocking in at 49.78, Galey was just off the pace to break that record, but shaved off .24 seconds from her 2008 final in the event. Incidentally, the 49.78 would have also won a year ago as Shiflett finished in 49.82.
The road to redemption: complete.
