American Tyler Clary has scratched the A-Final of the men’s 200 IM at the 2014 Minneapolis Grand Prix, despite being the second-place qualifier and having already won the 400 yard IM earlier in the meet.
See Saturday’s finals heat sheets here.
Clary was a 1:45.61 in prelims, which was a tenth slower than the top seed heading into finals Darian Townsend, and two-and-a-half seconds faster than the 3rd seed Guillermo Blanco.
But with the 200 yard backstroke coming later in the session, where he’s the top seed in 1:43.89, Clary opted to focus on just one race in finals.
The beneficiary of Clary’s scratch is John Bushman, who moves into the A-Final.
His was the most noteworthy scratch on Saturday. Others to drop out of A-Finals include Zoe Avestruz of the local Aquajets swim team, who was the 7th-fastest swimmer in the heats of the 200 backstroke. Instead Avestruz will try to medal in her third individual event of the weekend, the 100 free, after taking 3rd in the 50 free and the 100 back both on Friday.
She’s the third seed in that 100 free (49.26) that comes right after the 200 backstroke. Sophie Krivokapic-Zhou, a talented 15-year old from the Santa Clara Swim Club in California, moves into the women’s 200 back A-Final.
Mark Weber scratched out of the A-Final in the men’s 100 free, which was set to be his only event of the evening session. Japan’s Junya Koga, who is primarily a backstroker, moved into the A-Final after a 43.62 in prelims.
Is Becca Mann going to swim back-to-back 1650-200IM? The finals heat sheet doesn’t indicate time line.