Results: "2024 MAC A3 Performance November Invitational" on MeetMobile
Madison Aquatic Club's Max Garbacz had himself a weekend at the team's A3 Performance November Invite. The 14-year-old swam seven lifetime bests and moved up in the boys' 13-14 top 100 age group rankings in four events. He's been improving rapidly over the last 18 months in both short-course yards and long-course meters. After a successful summer in meters where he qualified for Futures, he's picked up right where he left off in yards.
Garbacz's highest ranking is now in the 400 IM, where he checks in at #26 with his new lifetime best of 3:56.50. It's his first outing under the four-minute mark; his previous lifetime best was a 4:01.73 from the Wisconsin 11-14 Championships in March. With his swim at the A3 Performance Invite, he's chopped 5.23 seconds from his best and earned a Winter Juniors cut.
He's now 34th in the 13-14 age group in both the 100 and 200 backstroke. Like the 200 IM, his fastest swim of the meet came in prelims, where he broke 50 seconds for the first time in his career, swimming a 49.86. His previous lifetime best was 51.68 from February of this year.
Though his fastest swims came in the morning for the 100 back and 200 IM he was still fast enough to take gold in both. In the 100 backstroke finals, he swam 50.62, still well under his lifetime best coming into the meet. He clocked 1:48.82 in the 200 backstroke, again breaking through a barrier as it was his first sub-1:50 swim.
In addition to his wins in the 400 IM and 100/200 backstroke, he took gold in the 400 IM -- completing the IM sweep -- and 200 freestyle. The 200 IM is the final event where he moved into his age group's top 100 as he swam 1:51.40 to move into a tie for 36th place. He destroyed this former lifetime best as well, taking 1.72 seconds off his standard of 1:53.12 from March 2024.
Though he didn't crack his age group's top 100 in the 200 freestyle, his winning time of 1:43.32 represented another significant drop. His previous best was a 1:49.18 from this meet last year and he blew by that mark twice, first swimming a 1:44.67 in prelims and then dropping to a 1:43.32 in the finals.
He also swam lifetime bests in the 50 freestyle and 50 backstroke, clocking 22.23 in the former and 23.90 in the latter.