Who knows if 16-year-old Claire Curzan would have made the Olympic team, had the Tokyo Games been held this year.
What’s clear is that she swam like an Olympian on Friday, recording the fastest 100m butterfly for an American since the start of 2019 at the U.S. Open, the biggest domestic meet since the Olympics were postponed to 2021.
Curzan, a North Carolina high school junior, clocked 56.61 seconds, chopping nearly one second off her personal best. She moved from seventh in the 2019-20 U.S. rankings to first, stamping herself as a favorite to make next year’s Olympic team.