2019 Pan American Games Day 3 Prelims Preview: Adrian Hitting for “The Cycle”

2019 PAN AMERICAN GAMES

• Villa Deportiva Nacional – Videna, Lima, Peru
• Tuesday, August 6th – Saturday, August 10th (pool swimming)
• Prelims 11 AM / Finals 8:30 PM (local time/US Central Time)
• Official Website
• Entry List
• Live Results

Thursday marks day 3 of the 2019 Pan American Games, where there will be 10 medal events:

• Women’s and Men’s 100 free
• Women’s and Men’s 200 back
• Women’s and Men’s 200 breast
• Women’s and Men’s 100 back
• Women’s and Men’s 800 free
• Women’s and Men’s 400 medley relays

Notable Scratches

• Colombia’s Isabella Arcila has scratched the women’s 100 back as the 7th seed. She has remaining entries in the 50 free and 100 back and hasn’t yet raced at the meet. The 100 back also comes on Thursday.
• Trinidad & Tobago’s Dylan Carter, his country’s best swimmer, scratched out of the men’s 100 free as the 4th seed. He finished 4th in the 200 free earlier in the meet, and has remaining swim scheduled in the 50 free and 100 back. Like Arcila, that 100 back is also on Thursday.
• After finishing 4th in the 100 breaststroke, sprint specialist Felipe Lima of Brazil has dropped the 200 breaststroke. He’ll instead focus his Thursday efforts on the men’s 400 medley relay, where results in the meet so far give Brazil a strong chance at gold.

Relay Prelims

Unlike the free relays, the medley relays will swim preliminary rounds, including the mixed medleys on Thursday. There are 10 teams fighting for 8 spots in prelims. While there will be some max effort from teams at the bottom of the rankings battling for a second swim, for the top relays from countries like the USA, Brazil, and Canada, we’re going to see a whole lot of “safe starts” racing. That’s especially true given that many of the swimmers on those relays will be pulling doubles on the day and don’t have any real incentives to go all-out here.

Completing the Career Gold Medals Cycle

American sprinter Nathan Adrian has won almost every type of international gold medal available to him in his career. That means Olympic gold, long course World Championship gold, short course World Championship gold, and Pan Pac Championship gold. He missed out in his first opportunity to complete “the cycle” with a Pan American Games gold on Wednesday when the US took silver in the 400 free relay. his 47.70 was the 2nd-fastest split in the field, behind only Brazil’s Marcelo Chierighini (47.45). Those two are the top seeds in prelims of the individual 100 free.

Annie Lazor Looking to Double Up

American Annie Lazor on Thursday will seek to become the first woman since 1995 to sweep the breaststroke gold medals at the Pan American Games. That year, it was Lisa Flood from Canada who did so. The last American to pull off the double was Dorsey Tierney in 1991. This historic double would be a big feather in the cap of a swimmer who has risen from swimming anonymity to the top of the breaststroking world in the last year. Lazor already won the 100 breaststroke, and the 200 is her better event. Her winning time in the 100 was almost a second slower than her season best, however, so that tempers expectations of her chasing a World Record after going 2:20 in May. Her biggest competition will be countrymate Bethany Galat and the South American Record holder Julia Sebastian, who swam a lifetime best to take silver in the 100 just 4 one-hundredths behind Lazor.