Claire Curzan Continuing Backstroke Dominance, Returning to Butterfly Roots in Final College Season
Almost six years after bursting onto the scene as a teenager with Olympic hopes, Claire Curzan is approaching the end of a college career best described as dynamic. Curzan has experienced significant highs and lows during that time, which included one year at Stanford before transferring to Virginia for four years, the first of which she spent as a redshirt swimmer. She missed out on qualifying for the 2023 World Championships and 2024 Olympics but has returned to the international stage with acclaim the past two summers.
Now, in this final collegiate season, Curzan can claim the title of top female swimmer in the country as she aims to join an exclusive club of swimmers to win four national titles in one event. Those titles would not be consecutive after she sat out the 2023-24 season, but she does have national wins in the 200 backstroke in 2023, 2025 and 2026.
Over the past two seasons, Curzan has turned the event into her personal domain: she first broke the American and NCAA records at the Tennessee Invitational in November 2024, and she has dropped it twice more since. Her best time of 1:46.09 stands more than a second ahead of history’s second-quickest performer (Bella Sims), and she has the top five quickest times in history in the event, including the 1:46.85 she swam already this season in Virginia’s first College Swimming League competition.
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Meanwhile, Curzan has also approached record territory in the 100-yard back. After edging Sims by one hundredth for the NCAA title in the event in 2025, she swam sub-49 for the first time last season, eventually topping out at 48.24 at the NCAA Championships to become the second-fastest swimmer in history, just 0.14 behind the all-time best held by Virginia training partner Gretchen Walsh.
Most of Curzan’s lengthy international medal resume has also come in backstroke, including a sweep of all three distances at the lightly-attended February 2024 World Championships. Her most recent honors included bronze in the 200-meter back at the 2025 World Championships and silver at the Pan Pacific Championships this summer.
But in an earlier stage of her career, Curzan excelled the most in butterfly; the 100 fly was the event in which Curzan reached the Olympic team in 2021 and helped her secure an Olympic medal as a prelims relay swimmer. Over the weekend, she reminded everyone of her butterfly abilities during the fourth match of the CSL season. A day off from her current focus stroke allowed Curzan to climb the all-time rankings in an event she rarely contests.
Curzan admitted years ago that she dislikes the 200 butterfly, and she has only contested it four times in her college career. She ended a three-year hiatus from the race last January by clocking 1:51.35 in a dual meet, a time which would have placed fourth at the NCAA Championships. In CSL action Friday in Knoxville, Tenn., Curzan recorded a time of 1:50.10, narrowly missing becoming the sixth swimmer in history to break the 1:50-barrier. She eclipsed the winning time in the event from last season’s NCAAs.
In that same competition, Curzan won women’s 50 fly skins, finishing first in all four rounds and recording her fastest time of 22.94 in the last swim, and she posted a 49-second swim in the 100 fly to conclude her individual lineup for the day. Her versatility gives Virginia an important X-factor for the upcoming CSL Championship meet, allowing the Cavaliers’ coaches to determine Curzan’s schedule based on matchups. For instance, Curzan could sit out the 100 back knowing teammate Sara Curtis could hold the fort.
As for this spring’s collegiate championship season, the again-adjusted schedule for the NCAA Championships does Curzan few favors, putting the 200-yard events of backstroke and butterfly on the same day as well as the 100-yard races of those strokes together. That means Curzan must choose to contest two events on one day, likely the 100 fly and 100 back on the final day, or return to competing in the 50 freestyle.
Curzan did place second at that event at the 2025 NCAA Championships, but Virginia has two other star sprinters waiting in Curtis and Anna Moesch. On the other hand, with Torri Huske out of collegiate eligibility, Curzan could potentially win the NCAA title in the 100 fly, an event in which she ranks fourth all-time, and still have enough energy to hold off the field in the 100 back later in the session.
Regardless of her event decisions, Curzan has set herself up for a big finale at Virginia, with starring roles to come in the CSL Championship and at the ACC and NCAA Championships, the latter of which will see the Cavaliers pursuing a record-extending seventh consecutive national title. In between could come some Team USA duty, provided Curzan qualifies for the Short Course World Championships as she continues to build out her strong international record.
