Over the weekend, the Columbia men’s swimming and diving team took the first step toward its ultimate goal of the season.
The Lions rebounded from a close loss to Cornell with a come-from-behind victory against Brown at home. The win marks the team’s first conference victory of the season, bringing its record to 4-4, 1-4 in the Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming League.
According to senior and captain Henning Fog, the loss to Cornell was disappointing, but it was a step in the right direction.
“While Cornell was indeed a tough loss,” Fog said, “we could not be happier with the way we swam. Everyone was firing on all cylinders, and barring a few missteps we might have won.”
One of those missteps included an injury Fog described as “unnecessary.” He fractured his hand prior to the training trip the team took to Hawaii and Puerto Rico over winter break and was in a cast until recently. For the last month, Fog has been biking, running, and kicking to try and get back to the water.
“I feel in better shape than ever before,” he said. “Now I just need to relearn the whole ‘swimming’ thing.”
Saturday night, Fog had plenty of support from his teammates, who rallied from a 21-point deficit to defeat the Bears at Uris Swim Center. The final score of 161.5-138.5 fails to reflect just how tightly contested the meet was, as the Lions had to swim from behind for the first 11 of 16 events.
The momentum swung in Columbia’s favor when a top-three sweep of the 200-yard breaststroke gave the team its first lead of the day. Junior Zach Glassman and sophomores Eric Tang and Ross Ramone filled the top slots, finishing three full seconds ahead of Brown’s fourth-place swimmer.
The Lions clinched the meet with a one-two finish in the 200-yard individual medley in the penultimate event of the competition. Junior Cedric Cheung-Lau touched first, boosting Columbia’s lead to 150.5-132.5 entering the final event.
Junior Hyun Lee continued his career season, placing first in three individual events while anchoring a winning relay team. The South Korea native outshined his counterparts in the 100-, 500-, and 1000-yard freestyle and sprinted the 400-yard freestyle relay team to a first-place finish with a late surge in the final 25 yards. In the 100-yard free, Lee clocked a Uris Pool record of 44.73 seconds, breaking the time of 44.98 set by Yale’s Alex Righi earlier in the season.
Fog was encouraged by the team’s resilience against Brown, explaining that the win brought energy to both the team and the crowd.
“Yesterday’s victory meant a lot to us,” Fog said. “Our first Ivy League win, it felt like vindication for some of the more confounding meets of the first semester. Both Cornell and Brown were just fun, energetic match-ups. And we had fans—many of whom weren’t even our parents—in the stands. The lure of the shirtless men.”