Limouze Is a National Champion, Again!

Swimmer takes title in 200-yard butterfly for second consecutive year

by Anne C. Paine and Dick Michaels

Senior John Limouze did it again.

The NCAA Division III champion in the 200-yard butterfly successfully defended his title at the 2001 cham-pionship meet, held last March in Buffalo, New York.

In doing so, he also achieved a personal goal of shaving his time to under 1 minute, 50 seconds, making him just the fourth swimmer in NCAA Division III history to break that mark in the 200 butterfly since 1975.

For Limouze, it was the fourth trip in as many years to the national meet, where he's made the 200 butterfly his signature event. A double major in history and biology, Limouze placed fifth in the event during his freshman year, third in his sophomore year, and first both last year and this. With his first national championship, achieved in March 2000, he became Oberlin's sixth national champion in swimming and diving since 1988.

This year's race was extremely close and exciting.

Limouze had been seeded fourth coming into the meet, with a time of 1:51.27 at last December's Miami invitational. In the preliminary heats, he qualified second with a time of 1:50.87, well behind the leader, Sebastian Popa of Emory University, who clocked 1:50.14.

In the finals, Limouze trailed Popa at the 100-yard mark 52.25 to 54.01, and was in eighth place, but then he began his drive to the finish. He was in third place at the 150-yard mark, but by the 175-yard mark, he had a half-body length lead, which he maintained to the finish.

Limouze's strategy is to save his energy for the second half of
the race.

"Ideally I like to be three seconds slower on the second 100 yards than on the first," he said. "In the final race, there was only a 1.5-second difference between the two splits. Part of that was due to a tactical error on my part – I was too slow going out, even for me, and had little extra energy for the last half. But I also knew, once I started to get tired going into the last length, that I only had 10 or 15 more seconds of swimming for the rest of my life. That helped me ignore the pain.

"I knew even before the race started that I had a chance to win, no matter where I was at the halfway mark," he continued. "I have always been a good finisher, though I have less breakaway speed than most of the people I race against. When I finished, I thought I had won, but didn't know for sure until I saw the clock."

Limouze was proud to take the first-place trophy, but took more satisfaction from meeting the challenge he'd set for himself. After winning last year in a time of 1:50.47, it was his goal to break 1:50.00. He did -- with a time of 1:49.85 -- beating the second-place swimmer, Carlos Vega of Kenyon College, who clocked 1:50.40.

"The best feeling was having broken 1:50.00. For a 200 flyer, that is a pretty big mark, maybe analogous to a running a sub-4:00 mile," Limouze said. "It had been my goal for a long time, and to accomplish it on my last race was more important than anything else."

Then he added, "Winning was nice, though."

Limouze was accompanied to Buffalo by a large group of Oberlin teammates and friends, as well as Athletic Director Mike Muska, all of whom drove through a blizzard to cheer on the lone Obie at the event.

"It's always better to perform for a crowd, and they were the loudest and most visible fans there," Limouze said. "Swimmers from bigger and better teams were amazed that one swimmer would get so many fans, especially in such terrible weather. It definitely helped me swim better."

During his Oberlin career, Limouze was a two-year team co-captain and a four-time most valuable swimmer, and he earned NCAA All-America recognition four times.

"The championship was a tremendous conclusion to Limouze's outstanding swimming career at Oberlin," said Dick Michaels, head coach of Oberlin's swimming teams.