2024 U.S. Olympic Trials: 4 of 5 No-Shows in the 100 Butterfly Heats are 200 IM Finalists

2024 U.S. OLYMPIC TRIALS

There were five lanes left empty this morning in the heats of the men’s 100 butterfly: Shaine Casas (#2 seed), Arsenio Bustos (#12), Jonny Kulow (#13), Grant House (#29), and Will Modglin (#49). Of those five, four finalists in the 200 IM tonight. Kulow is the one exception, though he was the victim of a double swim-off in the 50 free last night.

It bears mentioning that the scratch deadline for prelims is an hour after the start of the night session, and the first semi of the 200 IM swam around 9:05pm ET last night. The session started at 8:00pm ET, which means it would have been impossible for these athletes make a decision based on their 200 IM performance.

Modglin’s placement in the 200 IM must have come as a surprise to him and his coaches; he came into the event seeded 27th, and had a big drop to place 17th after prelims. A scratch in the top-16 gave him a semis berth, and now he’ll swim in lane 8 tonight.

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LBSWIM
6 days ago

Hopefully this will end the complaints on why the late scratches.

FST
6 days ago

Casas makes the strangest decisions.

Last edited 6 days ago by FST
Hank
Reply to  FST
6 days ago

Possibly the best decision of his career if he wins the 200Im which I expect he will.

LBSWIM
Reply to  FST
6 days ago

Nah. For once I think he made the right call.

SwimmerGuy
6 days ago

Kinda surprised with Casas. He is on paper a clear #2 here.
He could likely get through to semis without burning too many matches. And still be fresh for tonight.
I know he scratched before the Semis 2IM swim but thats still a tight event.

Not a top coach
Reply to  SwimmerGuy
6 days ago

Paper hasn’t meant much for him (not trying to hate) so might make sense for him

Mean Dean
Reply to  SwimmerGuy
6 days ago

He’s definitely more primed to upset the 200 IMers than the 100 flyers. On paper he’s been 50.4 but it’s been awhile.

CY~
Reply to  SwimmerGuy
6 days ago

It makes sense to pick 200IM or 100fly, cos final of 200IM is scheduled at 8.21 and semi of 100fly at 8.33

M L
Reply to  SwimmerGuy
6 days ago

The IM final is before the fly semi, so he’d just be seeing what he has left for the latter. Does he really need to take the whole morning off just to save up for tonight? Especially when he could surely have cruised a 52 low this morning?

Hank
Reply to  M L
6 days ago

Maybe he does. He might not be a great morning performer and need the sleep.

JimSwim22
6 days ago

Seems silly to have scratch deadline before session end

Paddy
Reply to  JimSwim22
5 days ago

His finish time in the 2IM was after the deadline to scratch