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Cal Sports Report

Freshman Captures Cal's First Individual NCAA Swim Title in 7 Years

Claire Weinstein sets a school record while winning a national title in a 'shocker'
Jake Curtis|
Claire Weinstein
Claire Weinstein | Rob Schumacher-Imagn Images

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California Golden Bears

Freshman Claire Weinstein became the first Cal woman in seven years to capture an NCAA individual swimming title by winning the 500-yard freestyle on Friday in the women’s NCAA Championships at McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

The 19-year-old Weinstein is Cal’s first individual national champion since Abbey Weitzeil won the 50-yard freestyle in 2019.

The announcers calling the race for television called Weinstein's victory a "shocker."

Weinstein was only the sixth seed in the finals after posting a time of 4:36.66 in this morning’s preliminaries.

But she shaved more than six seconds off that time in the finals, finishing in a school-record time of 4:30.09. She finished more than a second ahead of second-place finisher of Jillian Cox of Texas, who was times in 4:31.56. Weinstein’s time was also the best time for the event in the NCAA this season.

“The last 75 yards of that race I was just replaying all of the special moments from this season,” Weinstein said in a statement provided by Cal. “I never wanted something so bad, so I dug deep, and thought about all the people that came before me, all the women that made Cal swimming what it is. Now this team is moving in that direction.”

Cal’s 400 individual medley team of quartet of Mary-Ambre Moluh, Annie Jia, Elle Scott and Teagan O’Dell also set a Cal record while finishing sixth in a time of 3:25.09.

The meet concludes on Saturday with the 200 IM, 100 free, 200 butterfly, 200 backstroke, and 400 free relay taking place.

Cal currently is sixth in the team standings and is looking for its best finish since the Bears were the national runner-up in 2019. Virginia has a large lead heading into Sunday's final day as the Cavaliers shoot for their sixth straight women's national swimming and diving championship.

Team standings after Day 3

1. Virginia -- 437.5

2. Texas -- 272

3. Stanford -- 242.5

4. Tennessee -- 240.5

5. Michigan -- 228

6. Cal -- 199

7. Indiana -- 176

8. Louisville -- 144.5

9. North Carolina -- 141.5

10. Florida -- 113.5

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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