Bottom, Five Wolverines Conclude Competition at World University Games
7/12/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming & Diving
July 12, 2015
2015 World University Games
GWANGJU, South Korea -- Five current or former members of the University of Michigan men's swimming and diving team competed at the World University Games, held July 4-11 at the Nambu University International Aquatics Center.
Representing the United States was current swimmers Paul Powers and Cameron Stitt, and former Wolverines Kyle Whitaker (2011-14) -- who was co-captain of Team USA -- and Michael Wynalda (2011-14), while Julian Ballestas represented Colombia. In addition, head coach Mike Bottom served as the head men's swimming coach for Team USA.
Wynalda and Whitaker each claimed gold medals for Team USA as part of the 4x200-meter freestyle relay (7:10.82), swimming the third and fourth legs, respectively, while Powers won bronze in the 50-meter freestyle (22.34). Wynalda picked up an additional gold as part of the winning 4x100-meter freestyle relay (3:15.85), and swam the anchor leg on the 4x100-meter medley relay during preliminaries. That quartet finished second (3:39.24) and won silver, though Wynalda didn't swim in the finals.
"That was a lot of fun," Whitaker said to the media following the race. "Being the anchor leg, it's just a tremendous honor to be out there competing for the United States. Our relay team really meshed well together. We had a lot of practice. Being out there, competing and winning gold was a lot of fun."
Whitaker also pulled a difficult double earlier in the week, where he took seventh in the 200-meter IM (2:00.67) and 14th in the 200-meter butterfly (1:59.06).
Powers qualified as the top seed to the 50-meter freestyle, posting a time of 22.18, a new school record for long course meters. The old record was held by Michigan legend Gustavo Borges (22.62 from 1995). In the final, Powers finished a touch behind Yauhen Tsurkin of Belarus (22.22) and Henrique De Souza Martins of Brazil (22.24).
"I'm just happy to be here, honestly," Powers said. "I was never on original roster and it's been such an honor to swim with all these guys from around the world. It's the stiffest of competition you can get into other than the Olympics. I'm honored with the chance to swim here and I was happy to come out with a medal. That was my goal, to finish in the top three."
He was also a part of Team USA's 4x100-meter freestyle relay team during preliminaries, swimming the leadoff leg. That team took first (3:17.79) and went on to win a gold medal, though he was replaced on the relay.
In his lone event of the entire week, Stitt finished seventh in the open water 10K (1:56:00.10), held at Jangseongho Lake.
Ballestas was busy throughout the week, swimming in three individual events and on two relays for Colombia. He took 28th in the 200-meter butterfly (2:06.41), 29th in the 200-meter freestyle (1:52.81) and 44th in the 100-meter freestyle (52.32), while also contributing to a 12th-place finish on the 4x200-meter freestyle relay (7:46.24) and a 15th-place finish on the 4x100-meter freestyle relay (3:29.12).
Communications Contact: Brad Rudner (734) 763-4423
