Tucker breaks into USA Swimming Top 100

Sisters swimmer Taylor Tucker, 12, took home a bronze medal and broke into USA Swimming's National Top 100 rankings two weeks ago at the Northwest Age Group Championships.

About 175 USA Swimming Club teams were represented in the three-day meet held at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center in Federal Way, Washington, which featured about 1,000 of the fastest young age group swimmers from eight western states, including Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.

Tucker, who swims for the Bend Swim Club, qualified for the meet in four events, including the 500-yard freestyle, the 1,650-yard freestyle, the 100-yard backstroke and the 200-yard backstroke. Tucker was the 2008 Oregon state champion in the girls 11-year-old 100-meter backstroke last year and had the top Oregon qualifying time in her age group this season, in both the 200-yard backstroke and the 1,650-yard freestyle.

After placing fifth in the morning preliminaries of the 200-yard backstroke among 26 other qualifiers, Tucker came back in the evening finals against the eight fastest girls and won the bronze medal with a time of 2:16.01, behind Ella Johnson of Tacoma, the gold-medal finisher and Maddy Lydig of Spokane, the silver-medal finisher.

Tucker's time is USA Swimming "AAAA" time, the 12th fastest time that has been swum in the Western U.S. this year among girls in her age group (first in Oregon) and puts her at number 80 in USA Swimming's national rankings for the event. During the meet, Tucker also qualified for the USA Swimming Western Zone Championships to be held in Honolulu, Hawaii this August, in the 100-yard backstroke, with a time of 1:05.69.