National high school record in the 100-yard butterfly set in Virginia

I remember growing up that Mark Spitz held the national high school record in the 100-yard butterfly for a long time. He set an astonishing record of 49.1 seconds in 1967. (He also held the world record in the 100-meter fly for a long time; Joe Bottom finally broke that one.) Pablo Morales finally got the high school record with a 48.06 in 1983.

Anthony Nesty broke Morales' record in 1986 with a 47.60, and it didn't get broken again until Nate Dusing got it in 1997 with a 47.10. It's a tough record to break; Austin Staab tied Dusing in 2007.

So it was remarkable to me that the record got broken in Virginia by a kid named Sean Fletcher, with a 47.08. Didn't I tell you that it's a tough record to break? He just managed to break it by twice the margin that Michael Phelps needed to beat Cavic in Beijing.

And I actually saw a high-school swimmer get under 50 seconds back in 1978, which at the time was pretty big to get that close to Spitz. I guess I'm lucky.

If you want to see Fletcher in action a couple of months ago, with a 48.86 at the Tom Dolan Invitational, click right here.

A little more searching: Here's the actual record swim. Not the greatest video, but hey, who knew he was gonna do that?

Here are some good quality stills of Fletcher's record race