Upper St. Clair swimmer earns medals at Worlds Aquatics Championships
Josh Matheny of Upper St. Clair made his World Championships debuts at the Fukuoka 2023 World Aquatics Championship held recently in Japan.
The son of Jeff and Kristin Matheny contributed to Team USA’s medal counts with preliminary performances in top-three finishing relays. Matheny took gold in the men’s 4×100-meter medley relay and bronze in the mixed 4×100-meter medley relay.
Individually, he reached the finals in both the 100 and 200 breaststroke events.
Matheny finished seventh in the 100 with a 59.45 time. Qin Haiyang of China swam a 57.69 to win the race, which featured a three-way tie for second place. Italy’s Nicolo Martinenghi, USA’s Nic Fink and Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands all touched in at 58.71.
Matheny scored sixth place in the 200 with a 2:09.04 mark. Australia’s Zac Stubblety-Cook grabbed the gold in 2:07.27, ahead of Haiyang (2:07.70) and the USA’s Matt Fallon (2:07.90).
For some time, Matheny has been a world-class competitor. He was a record-breaking scholastic swimmer, an Olympic Trials qualifier as well as a national and world champion at the Junior level, ages 18 and under.
He was a four-time WPIAL and PIAA champion while competing at Upper St. Clair High School. He also set the national high school marks for the 100-yard breaststroke. In addition, Matheny was a gold and silver medalist in the 2019 World Junior Championships held in Budapest.
A rising junior at Indiana University, he’s already an All-American as well as an NCAA medalist.