Canton High graduate Will Gallant won a national championship in the 1,500 meter freestyle Tuesday at Philipps 66 national championship meet. (Courtesy Swimming World video)
Canton’s Will Gallant came from behind to win his first national championship race Tuesday when he captured the 1,500-meter race at the 2022 Phillips National Championship meet in Irvine, California, at the William Woolett Aquatic Center.
Gallant, 21, beat David Johnson of The Swim Team in California by more than two seconds with a career-best time of 14:57.08 – the first time that Gallant has broken 15 minutes in the race.
“Fifteen minutes is a big barrier and it is something that I have wanted to do for a while now,” he said in post-race interview posted by Swimming World. “In the past year or so, I feel like I have never had the race that I’ve been looking for in the 1,500 but today, I was able to execute.”
Johnston led for the first 1,000 meters and led Gallant by nearly two seconds at that point. But Gallant picked up the pace and swam eight straight 50 meter legs under 30 seconds to take the lead with 300 meters left in the race.
“The plan was to stay long and relaxed in the first 1,000 (meters) and then bring in my legs in the last 500 (meters),” Gallant said in his post-race interview. “That is what I train to do and I was able to pull it off very well.”
Gallant exceeded his previous best time in the event by more than 14 seconds. He swam a 15:11.79 at the 1,500 meters at the Speedo Summer Championship East event last August.
Gallant will begin his second year at North Carolina State in September. He won the Atlantic Coast Conference title in the 1,650 yard freestyle in March and was second in the event at the NCAA Division I championship meet in the same event to earn All-American honors.
Gallant isn’t finished at the national championship meet. He is seeded seventh in the 400 freestyle and is seeded a distant second in the 800 freestyle behind U.S. Olympian Bobby Finke.
Gallant, who graduated from Canton High in 2019, spent one season at the University of Indiana before going to California in May 2021 to train with the Mission Viejo Natadores in an attempt to make the 2021 U.S. Olympic team. He joined NC State in September 2021.
Avon High graduate Madison Kennedy, 34, is scheduled to swim Saturday in the women’s 50 meter freestyle. She is the 14th seed with a time of 25.53 seconds.
More details about the 2022 Phillips U.S. national championship meet.
