Sweden has made its first official Olympic selections, adding 49 names to its early all-sports roster, including 5 swimmers and all 3 female relays.
The headliner, of course, is world champ and world record-holder Sarah Sjostrom, who is listed as competing in the 100 fly, 50 free and 100 free. That fits with Sjostrom’s desire to focus on sprints – though she’s one of the world’s best 200 freestylers, Sjostrom has always seemed more focused on her sprint races (which are also world-class) and even dropped the 200 free at last summer’s World Championships in hopes of improving her performances in her other events.
Also added to the team individually are Jennie Johansson (100 breast) and Simon Sjodin (200 IM).
Johansson is the national record-holder in the 50 and 100 breast. Sjodin, the only man on the team at this point, was the subject of a controversy last year: Swedish National Team members protested what they saw as the unfair exclusion of Sjodin from the 2014 Short Course World Championships team. Sjodin did make the Swedish roster for the 2015 long course World Championships, and has now also etched his name on the nation’s Olympic squad.
Also on the team as relay swimmers are Louise Hansson and Michelle Coleman, each of whom swam on all three Swedish relays at last summer’s World Championships.
The full Swedish roster is listed here (in its original Swedish), and we’ve also republished the list below:
- Sarah Sjostrom (100m butterfly, the 50 and 100m freestyle)
- Jennie Johansson (100m breaststroke)
- Louise Hansson (relay)
- Michelle Coleman (relay)
- Simon Sjödin (200m individual medley)
- Team 4x100m medley Ladies
- Teams 4x100m freestyle Ladies
- Teams 4X200m freestyle ladies
Sarah has 200 free on her olympic schedule but it probably wouldn’t be fair to name her at this stage since the other girls(Coleman & Hansson) has the 200 as their best event. Gotta let them compete for it.