Sadie Buckley<\/a> has been on fire through the first few sessions of the 2026 Speedo Fort Lauderdale Open.<\/p>\nThe 16-year-old set a massive best time in the 200 fly and added another in the 100 free on Thursday, and then on Friday morning, she completed another impressive double.<\/p>\n
Buckley kicked things off in the 200 back, cracking the 2:10 barrier for the first time in 2:09.95 to advance 3rd into the final.<\/p>\n
She chipped 19 one-hundredths off her previous best time of 2:10.16, set at the Fort Lauderdale Pro Swim last year, and moved up two spots into 18th all-time in the girls\u2019 15-16 age group.<\/p>\n
Split Comparison<\/p>\n
Buckley, 2025
\nBuckley, 2026<\/p>\n
30.45
\n30.87<\/p>\n
1:03.14 (32.69)
\n1:03.73 (32.86)<\/p>\n
1:36.88 (33.74)
\n1:37.30 (33.57)<\/p>\n
2:10.16 (33.28)
\n2:09.95 (32.65)<\/p>\n
Just one event later, Buckley was back in the water in the 400 IM, throwing down a massive best time by nearly three and a half seconds in 4:41.79, crushing her previous best of 4:45.21 set last July at the Futures Championships in Greensboro.<\/p>\n
That performance launches her up from 43rd into 19th all-time in the 15-16 age group.<\/p>\n
Split Comparison<\/p>\n
Buckley, 2025
\nBuckley, 2026<\/p>\n
29.63
\n30.24<\/p>\n
1:03.78 (34.15)
\n1:04.32 (34.08)<\/p>\n
1:40.56 (36.78)
\n1:41.11 (36.79)<\/p>\n
2:16.60 (36.04)
\n2:15.87 (34.76)<\/p>\n
2:57.68 (41.08)
\n2:56.65 (40.78)<\/p>\n
3:39.81 (42.13)
\n3:37.77 (41.12)<\/p>\n
4:12.79 (32.98)
\n4:10.50 (32.73)<\/p>\n
4:45.21 (32.42)
\n4:41.79 (31.29)<\/p>\n
A Texas commit in the high school class of 2027, Buckley swam both the 200 back and 400 IM in long course meters earlier this season at the U.S. Open in December, where she clocked 2:10.95 in the 200 back and 4:45.33 in the 400 IM.<\/p>\n
She finished out the 2025-26 short course season with a bang in March, winning three individual titles and setting seven best times at the NCSA Spring Championships. Highlighting those swims was her moving to 4th all-time in the 15-16 age group in the 400 IM (4:03.07), 12th all-time in the 200 IM (1:54.84) and 14th in the 200 back (1:51.59).<\/p>\n
Heading into tonight\u2019s session, Buckley has scratched out of the 200 back, meaning she\u2019s going all in on the 400 IM, where she comes in seeded 2nd behind two-time Olympic medalist\u00a0Emma Weyant<\/a>, who clocked 4:40.47 this morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026 Speedo Fort Lauderdale Open Wednesday, April 29 \u2013 Saturday, May 2, 2026 Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[68035,249,251,250,110780],"class_list":["post-254381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-emma-weyant","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-sadie-buckley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}