Thomas Takes on NCAA Swimming Championships in Atlanta

George Washington sophomore backstroke and dash freestyle specialist Holden Thomas is the ultimate of the GW swimmers within the water in 2025-26, as he prepares for his first-ever journey to the NCAA Championships. The 2026 NCAA Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships might be held at McAuley Aquatic Center on the campus of Georgia Tech in Atlanta from March 25-28. 

Thomas will compete within the 100-yard backstroke prelims, the primary occasion held throughout Friday morning’s 10:00 a.m. session. The prime eight finishers from prelims will compete in Friday evening’s 100 again finals, which can also be the primary occasion scheduled through the 6:00 p.m. night session. Every session of the meet will air dwell on ESPN+.

Thomas certified for NCAAs after successful gold on the A-10 Championships within the 100-yard backstroke with an NCAA lower time (46.24) within the occasion remaining. Thomas’ qualifying race got here after he matched the GW and A-10 document within the 100 again prelims throughout his morning swim at A-10s (45.99).  

Thomas was a standout performer at A-10s with 48.5 factors because the Revolutionaries gained their sixth-consecutive convention title. The 100 again wasn’t the one document he set in Hampton, because the Murrysville, Pa., native additionally lowered the Revolutionaries’ document within the 50 free (19.40), as he claimed silver within the occasion remaining.

As GW’s sixth all-time males’s swimming & diving student-athlete to make NCAAs, Thomas would be the first to compete in backstroke since Gustav Hokfelt in 2018. The 100 again document Thomas tied at A-10s was set beforehand by Hokfelt through the prelims of his NCAA Championships look in 2018.     

Thomas, alongside teammates and NCAA Women’s Swimming & Diving Championships rivals Ava Topolewski and Olivia Paquette, helps to match this system document for mixed males’s and girls’s representatives in a single season on the nationwide championship meet. The 2026 group ties the whole despatched by GW in 2024, when Topolewski, Ava DeAngelis and Djurdje Matic every made an appearances on the nationwide meet.