2017 FINA World Championships: Day 1 Prelims Preview

2017 FINA WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Sunday, July 23rd – Sunday, July 30th
• Budapest, Hungary
• LCM (50m)
• Full Competition Schedule
• Meet Info
• Psych Sheets
• Omega Results
• Pick ’em Contest
• Event-by-Event Previews

The first session of the 2017 FINA World Swimming Championships will feature preliminary rounds of eight different events, with four of those having their final contested later on during the first night session of the meet.

Events bypassing semis and going direclty to the final will be the men’s and women’s 400 free, and the men’s and women’s 400 free relay.

Both circle-seeded heats of the men’s 400 free are loaded, and swimmers will have to be on their game right from the get-go to get in the final. Heat 5 will feature defending gold medalist Sun Yang of China, silver medalist James Guy of Great Britain, along with Americans Clark Smith and Zane Grothe. The final heat will have 2016 Olympic champ Mack Horton flanked by Korea’s Park Tae Hwan and Italy’s Gabriele Detti.

This will be a fast paced prelim, and the cutoff for finals could be in the 3:45-mid range, which is where it was in Rio. You can check out the lane assignments for this event, which are subject to change, here.

In the women’s event, Americans Katie Ledecky and Leah Smith will swim in lane 4 in the two circle-seeded heats and pace the field. Neither will have a problem making it through to the final, but don’t be surprised if Ledecky cracks 4:00.

Swimming alongside Smith in heat 3 will be Spaniard Mireia Belmonte, and rising youngsters Ajna Kesely (HUN) and Li Bingjie (CHN). Aussie Ariarne Titmus and Hungarian Boglarka Kapas will flank Ledecky in the last heat. Find the start list here.

Along with the 400 frees, there will be four other individual events at day 1 prelims that will see the top 16 advance through to the semi-finals: women’s 100 fly, women’s 200 IM, men’s 50 fly and men’s 100 breast.

World record holder Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden will center the final heat of the women’s 100 fly, with Olympic silver medalist Penny Oleksiak and American Kelsi Worrell in lane 4 in the other two circle-seeded heats. There are 16 women seeded under 58 seconds, so somewhere around 58.2 to 58.5 will be required to advance through to the second round. 100 fly heat sheet can be found here.

In the 200 IM the Hungarian crowd will get their first glimpse of the Iron Lady, Katinka Hosszu. Hosszu is the two-time defending champion and also won the Olympic crown last summer. #2 seed Siobhan O’Connor made that race in Rio much closer than anticipated, and she’s the clear favorite for silver. Highlighting the first circle-seeded heat is American Melanie Margalis, who will swim alongside teammate Madisyn Cox. Start lists can be found here.

The men’s 50 fly will see rivals Caeleb Dressel and Joseph Schooling going head-to-head in heat 8, just a preview of what’s to come in the 100 fly. Ukrainian Andriy Govorov is the top seed from that heat at 22.69, and Brazilians Nicholas Santos and Henrique Martins highlight the last heat alongside hometown favorite Laszlo Cseh. The first circle-seeded heat will be centered by the fastest man in the 50 free this year, Ben Proud, along with American Tim Phillips and dangerous Russian Evgeny Sedov. Check out the start lists here.

The last individual event of the morning will be the men’s 100 breast, where Great Britain’s Adam Peaty will hit the water for the first time. Anytime Peaty’s in action everyone needs to take notice, as last summer in Rio we saw a world record from him in the prelims before lowering it to 57.13 in the final.

2012 Olympic champ Cameron van der Burgh and American Kevin Cordes headline the other two circle-seeded heats. There are a total of 19 swimmers seeded under a minute, so in order to book a ticket to the semi-final the swimmers best be under 60 seconds. Heat sheet found here.

The relays will wrap up the session. Lineups will be announced closer to the prelims.

The women’s relay only has 14 entries, with the U.S. and the Netherlands highlighting heat 1 and Australia and Canada in heat 2. For the men, Australia and Brazil will swim in heat 1 with the U.S. and Russia following in heat 2. Both relays shape up to be a battle between four teams for three medals. Find the women’s relay start list here and the men’s here.