The Indiana men didn’t just win, they secured a fifth straight conference championship, continuing a swimming and diving dynasty in Bloomington. Michigan’s women surged to the top of the league, capturing the title with authority and balance across the lineup.

Records fell left and right throughout the week as this year’s Big 10 championships featured some of the best performances in conference history in the pool.

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Here are the main takeaways from this year’s Big 10 swimming and diving championships:

Indiana breaks away from Michigan to win fifth straight title

The Indiana men continued their dominance in the pool in 2026, extending their Big 10 dynasty.

From start to finish, the Hoosiers demonstrated experience and elite talent. Indiana won ten different events, including two relays and eight individual wins from six different athletes.

Indiana dominated the distance events this week, winning the 400-yd IM, the 500-yd freestyle, and 1,650-yd freestyle. Senior Zalan Sarkany won both distance freestyle events while freshman Josh Bey started off his Big 10 career with a win in the 400-yard IM.

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Owen McDonald was the second highest scorer in the meet behind Michigan senior Tyler Ray, who was named Big 10 Swimmer of the Championships. The senior won the Big 10 title in the 100-yd backstroke and 200-yd IM.

Senior Kai Van Westering and junior Dylan Smiley closed on the week with wins on the last night of competition for the Hoosiers. Van Westering grabbed the win in the 200-yd backstroke and Dylan Smiley won the 100-yd freestyle before leading Indiana to a win in the 400-yd freestyle relay to close out the meet.

Beyond individual stars, the Hoosiers stacked swims in the top eight of each event, showcasing balance across not only distance, but sprint and mid-distance events as well. Indiana’s performance combined consistency and poise, placing swimmers in the establishing control from the first event individual event to the final relay.

The win marks Indiana’s 32nd Big 10 title overall, which is second all time behind Michigan. Head coach Ray Looze won his ninth men’s Big Ten title, moving him into the top five all time in conference history.

A long-lost silent film that’s believed to be the first depiction of a robot in motion pictures was rediscovered in Michigan. And it’s a great reminder for film history fans that you shouldn’t give up hope just because a film has been deemed lost.

The film, titled “Gugusse and the Automaton,” is just 45 seconds long and was created in 1897 by French film pioneer Georges Méliès. It shows a magician named Gugusse turning a large crank to control Pierrot Automate, a child-sized robot. The robot grows bigger and bigger until it’s an adult.

Once full size, the robot does a little dance before hitting Gugusse over the head with a stick. Gugusse brings the robot down from his pedestal and then shows him what’s what.

Gugusse hits the robot over the head with a gigantic mallet, each swing making the mechanical man a little smaller until he’s back to his child-like size. Another swing makes the robot a small doll and then it’s just one more mallet slap before the robot disappears completely.

With that, the film is over.

It’s a short film with a goofy, slapstick premise. But it’s also an artifact that can be interpreted similarly to so much robot-focused media that would come later in the 20th century. The robot harms a human, the human needs to destroy the robot.

We see anti-robot stories pop up especially during difficult economic times, like the 1930s and 1970s, something I’ve written about before at length. And if you’re wondering whether there were hard economic times in France during the 1890s, there certainly were—in the form of a double dip recession, no less.

But putting aside the potential message of the film (and the risk of taking it too seriously as a sign of broader social frustrations), the story of how this film was rediscovered is fascinating.

Bill McFarland of Grand Rapids, Michigan, drove a box of films that belonged to his great-grandfather to the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia so that experts could take a look at what he had.

McFarland’s great-grandfather was a man named William Delisle Frisbee who had worked jobs as a school teacher and a potato farmer in Pennsylvania, according to a blog post from the Library of Congress. But he also worked nights as a “traveling showman,” according to the Library.

“He drove his horse and buggy from town to town to dazzle the locals with a projector and some of the world’s first moving pictures,” the Library explains. “He set up shop in a local schoolroom, church, lodge or civic auditorium and showed magic lantern slides and short films with music from a newfangled phonograph. It was shocking.”

Frisbee died in 1937 and two trunks of his possessions were passed on through generations until they made their way to McFarland, who was unable to screen the movies from himself because of their condition.

The Library posted a video to Instagram talking about their acquisition of the film and how remarkable it is that such an old film was found. It’s estimated that as much as 90% of films made before 1930 are lost to history.

Other films in the trunks included another Méliès film from 1900 titled “The Fat and Lean Wrestling Match,” fragments of a Thomas Edison movie called “The Burning Stable.” Library technicians scanned the films in 4K to preserve them for future generations.

The word “robot” wasn’t coined until 1920 for the Czech play R.U.R. by Karel Capek. But visions of artificial men date back centuries. And it’s incredible to see a robot from the 1890s depicted on film for the first time. Even if it’s just 45 seconds long.

Don’t give up hope if you’re longing to watch some movie that’s believed to be completely lost. You never know what someone may have in a dusty old trunk in Michigan.