OLYMPIC GAMES | SWIMMING
How does swimmer Thomas Heilman compare to Michael Phelps in the 200m fly?
The 17-year-old 200m butterfly champion becomes the youngest U.S. men’s swimmer to qualify since the “Baltimore Bullet” did it in 2000.
Michael Phelps started swimming at seven because of his sisters’ influence and to provide an outlet for his energy. By age 10, he held a national record for his age group in the 100-meter butterfly and began training at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club under coach Bob Bowman.
Phelps’s rapid improvement led him to qualify for the 2000 Summer Olympics at 15, making him the youngest male (since Ralph Flanagan in 1932) to make a U.S. Olympic swim team in 68 years. Although he didn’t win a medal, he did make the finals and finished fifth in the 200-meter butterfly. Everything he did afterward became an essential part of Olympic history, as he became the most medaled Olympic champion ever.
Fast-forward 24 years, and Thomas Heilman, a seventeen-year-old 6′2″ tall kid from Crozet, Virginia, is stepping into the scene as the third youngest qualified swimmer in the competitions’ history, after Flanagan and Phelps.
Thomas Heilman compared to the G.O.A.T Michael Phelps
Heilman is the world junior record holder in the long-course 4×100 meter freestyle relay. He is also a 2022 Junior Pan Pacific Championships gold medalist in the 100-meter butterfly, 4×100 meter freestyle relay, and 4×100 meter medley relay and a silver medalist in the 100-meter freestyle, 200-meter butterfly, and 4×200 meter freestyle relay, an incredible record for a 17-year-old.
He competed in the Olympic trials in the 100—and 200-meter butterfly events and secured his Olympic qualification in both events. He won first place in the latter event with a time of 1.54.50. In the 100-meter butterfly, Heilman placed second with a time of 50.80, behind the primary star of the USA swimming team, Caeleb Dressel. This time beat the prior age group time set by Michael Phelps by 30 milliseconds.
Suppose his inaugural Olympic participation is being looked at and compared to Phelps’s. In that case, we can conclude that Heilman has a greater prospect of winning a medal in at least one of the two events he is qualified for (compared to the one of Michael Phelps in Sydney 2000).
Time will undoubtedly show how great Thomas Heilman will be during his professional swimming career. Still, one thing is certain: he has a potentially better career start than his fellow American Olympic gold medal record holder.