Seniors Evan VanBrocklin and Elias Petersen, along with junior Nick Chirafisi, will represent the University of Utah at the NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships in Atlanta this week, according to a March 24 announcement from the university.
The event follows last week’s women’s championships at McAuley Aquatic Center. Chirafisi is scheduled to swim in the 200, 500, and 1650 freestyle events. VanBrocklin will participate in the 100 butterfly, 200 butterfly, and 200 individual medley. Petersen is set to compete on both the one-meter and three-meter springboards.
Utah has shown strong performances leading up to these championships. At the Big 12 Championships earlier this season, Chirafisi and VanBrocklin contributed to a record-setting effort in the men’s 800 freestyle relay with a time of 6:17.20 that earned them bronze. Chirafisi also broke his own school record twice in the 200 freestyle during that meet and claimed another program record by winning gold in the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:13.48. VanBrocklin won gold in both the 200 individual medley—posting one of Utah’s fastest times ever—and set a new school mark for the second consecutive year in the men’s 100 butterfly.
Petersen has been successful as well, winning gold on one-meter springboard at Big 12s while setting personal bests on three-meter springboard for second place and finishing sixth on platform diving. At NCAA Zone E Championships inside Wall Athletic Center in Flagstaff, he placed second on one-meter, fifth on three-meter, seventeenth on platform diving events—and helped lead Utah’s men’s diving team to gold.
Utah athletes have received multiple honors this season from their conference peers: ten Big Twelve Conference weekly awards were distributed among swimmers and divers since October—including five Diver of The Week awards for Petersen alone—and since joining Big Twelve last year Utah has claimed twenty such honors overall.
