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Sept. 12, 1999
SAN DIEGO, Calif. – University of Virginia fourth-year swimmer AustinRamirez (Brookfield, Wisc./Brookfield Central) won the 1500-meter freestyleduring Saturday’s competition in the Bank of American U.S. Olympic Cup atCanyonview Pool on the campus of UC-San Diego. The competition concludesSunday evening. Ramirez won the 1500-meter freestyle with a time of15:34.31, more than eight seconds ahead of Great Britain’s Greg Orphanides.
The United States scored 232 points in the opening day of competition totake a commanding lead. Great Britain is second with 113 points and Franceis third with 62.
The U.S. Olympic Cup is the third championship meet that Ramirez hascompeted in this summer. On August 5, Ramirez won a silver medal in the400-meter freestyle at the Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, Canada. He posted atime of 3:53.64 in the finals. Ramirez advanced to the finals by clockingthe fastest time in the preliminaries at 3:57.02.
At the USA Swimming National Championships, held August 6-10, at theUniversity of Minnesota, Ramirez competed in three finals. His best finishwas fourth place in the 5K Open Water event. He turned in a time of 47:18in that event. Ramirez was sixth in the 400 freestyle with a time of3:55.54 and finished eighth in the 200 free with a time of 1:52.16.
Ramirez won both the 500 freestyle (4:21.33) and the 1650 freestyle(15:10.15) at the 1999 ACC Championships. He earned Honorable MentionAll-America accolades with a 10th-place finish in the 500 freestyle(4:21.62) and an 11th-place finish in the 1650 freestyle (15:05.75) at theNCAA Championships in March.