Undergraduate planning student excels at Mexican at swim meet

Stellar performances at the recent Mexican national swimming championships by Liliana Ibañez, a [Bachelor of Science in Urban & Regional Planning] (http://laup.arch.tamu.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs-urpn/) student at Texas A&M, led to a haul of four gold medals and a new national record in the 50-meter butterfly event.

Ibañez, a fourth-year student who is also a member of the Texas A&M [swim team] (https://one.arch.tamu.edu/news/2014/7/29/student-excels-swim-meet/bml?DB_OEM_ID=27300&SPID=93236&SPSID=632687&KEY=) , set a Mexican record of 27.94 seconds in the 50-meter butterfly at the meet, which took place in Veracruz July 14-19, 2014.

The Celaya, Mexico native, who [competed] (http://summergames.ap.org/boston/content/london-olympics-swimming-women-317) on the Mexican swim team in the London 2012 Olympics, also bested the field in three other events: the 200-meter freestyle with a 2:02.29 time, the 100-meter freestyle with a time of 55.91 and the 50-meter freestyle with a 25.75 time.

“It was a very good competition, with a lot of fast swimmers,” said Ibañez, who also holds Mexican national records in the 50, 100 and 200-meter freestyle events.

Ibanez’ times at the meet qualified her to compete in November’s [2014 Central American and Caribbean Games] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_American_and_Caribbean_Games) in Veracruz.

During the 2013-14 Aggie swim season, Ibañez was a member of two relay teams that set school records — the 800-meter freestyle relay, with a time of 6:58.80 at the 2014 SEC championships and the 400-meter medley relay, with a 3:28.13 time at the NCAA championships.

After graduating in December 2014, Ibañez plans to continue her studies at Texas A&M in the [Master of Land and Property Development] (http://laup.arch.tamu.edu/academics/graduate/mlpd/) program, which will give the redshirt senior a final year of eligibility on the Aggie swim team and a chance to continue training for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016.