BIRMINGHAM, Ala.— He's simply the best!
Colorado Mesa University senior diver
Ammar Hassan became the first man in NCAA Division II history to win three consecutive national championships on the 1-meter board on Saturday evening,
just two days after joining his former coach Logan Pearsall (2009-11) and UC Irvine's Bob Wilhite (1967-69) as Division II's only 3-time, 3-meter national champions.
Hassan also became the division's only 6-time diving national champion and as he swept the national titles for the third time by scoring 568.50 points in Saturday's finals at the NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championships here in the Birmingham CrossPlex. Hassan, who had an even better score of 578.30 points in the afternoon preliminaries, had done the same diving-double in 2018 and 2019 and was the prohibitive favorite in 2020, when last year's championships were canceled after 1 ½ days of competition due to the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. He was leading the 1-meter after the preliminary round of that year as well.
Hassan, a 2-time FINA World Championship participant and Olympic hopeful for his native Egypt, is also only the second man in Division II history to win the 1-meter title three times, joining Clarion's Collin Vest, the 2014, 2015 and 2017 champion.
Meanwhile, teammate
Tanner Belliston took fifth with 465.05 points while CMU's
Chandler Livingston (443.55) and
Isaiah Cheeks (443.25) finished ninth and tenth in the preliminaries giving the Mavericks 50 team points as they matched their best-ever overall team finish (11
th) with 136 total points, 111 of which came in the two diving events.
Mahmoud Elgayar, who finished 11
th in the 200-yard breaststroke on Saturday scored 23 of the other 25 throughout the 4-day meet. The Cairo, Egypt native also finished fifth in the 100-yard event on Friday after placing 15th in the 200 IM on Thursday.
Hassan, who hails from the 6
th of October, Egypt, located just south of the capital city, had led a 1-4-5-7 finish in the 3-meter event on Thursday.
CMU had also finished 11
th as a team in 2019.
In the swimming pool, Elgayar turned in a time of one minute, 59.69 seconds in the finals to take third in the consolation heat of the 200 breast. He had posted a time of 1:59.17, the fastest ever all-conditions clocking, in CMU history during the morning preliminaries to earn a lane in the evening session.
Elgayar also holds the altitude-adjusted school-record of 1:58.07, when he posted a time of 1:59.27 at the 2019 A3Performance Invitational in CMU's El Pomar Natatorium.
The Maverick men also had two other men in the 100 free prelims on Saturday morning. Freshman
Ben Sampson finished 29
th in 44.98 seconds while sophomore Matheus Laperriere finished 32
nd in 45.49. Laperriere had finished 15
th in the 200 free on Thursday.
The Maverick women also finished a strong 12th in the final team standings after recording five more point-scoring efforts on Saturday.
