With winter and the NCAA season over, and with temperatures warming up and long course season in full swim, the 2017 Atlanta PSS stop promises to be the biggest domestic meet in the big pool since last summer’s Olympic Trials.
According to the psych sheet released yesterday, over 20 members of the 2016 USA Olympic Team, plus a bevy other American and international stars, are scheduled to race at the legendary Georgia Tech Aquatic Center for next week’s meet, which begins Thursday and runs through Sunday.
Many USA swimmers are still getting into the swing of long course, as World Championship Trials are still two months away, while most of the international stars who will be in attendance at Atlanta have already punched their tickets to Budapest.
Katie Ledecky already sits 3rd in the PSS point tally, despite only competing in one of the three PSS stops so far this year, and she’ll have plenty of opportunities to rack up more points, with swims scheduled in the 100 free, 400 free, 400 IM, 200 free, and 800 free. She’ll go to head-to-head in the shorter two of those races with another Olympic gold medalist, Simone Manuel. The Stanford sprinter sits second right now in the point standings, and will also be racing the 50 free, 100 fly, and 100 back.
Canadian Penny Oleksiak, who tied with Manuel for the 100 free gold in Rio, is scheduled to swim the 100 fly, 100 free, 200 free, 50 free, 200 fly, and 100 back. Meanwhile, series point leader Melanie Margalis is slated for the 100 free, 200 breast, 200 free, 100 breast, and 200 IM.
On the men’s side, series point leader Josh Prenot is not scheduled to appear in Atlanta, but there will be no lack of star power. American sprint sensations Nathan Adrian and Anthony Ervin will be leading the way in the 50 and 100 freestyles, while middle distance guy Conor Dwyer is scheduled to make his first PSS appearance, swimming the 100/200 free and 200 IM.
California Golden Bear backstroke buds Ryan Murphy and Jacob Pebley will be both be contesting the 100/200 back, along with the 100/200 free. Breaststroke will also be a battle, with specialists Kevin Cordes, Nic Fink, Cody Miller, and Andrew Wilson all scheduled to race here, not to mention more versatile guys like Michael Andrew, Gunnar Bentz, and Chase Kalisz all racing at least one breast event too.
This meet is so deep that we really can’t go into every name or every event without this getting unduly long, so suffice it to say that the majority of the likely contenders for spots on the USA’s World Championships Team are going to be racing here, which means we should see a good preview of June’s World Championships Trials.
Here’s just a few other major names and their event lineups:
Kelsi Worrell — 100 fly, 100 free, 50 free, 200 fly, 100 back
Olivia Smoliga — 100 free, 50 free, 100 back, 200 back
Clark Smith — 800, 100 fly, 400 free, 200 free, 1500 free
Tom Shields — 100 fly, 100 free, 200 free, 200 fly
Jack Conger — 100 fly, 100 free, 200 free, 200 fly
Gunnar Bentz — 100 fly, 200 breast, 400 IM, 200 free, 200 fly, 200 IM
Tae Hwan Park — 400 free, 200 free
Joseph Schooling — 200 fly
Blake Pieroni — 100 free, 200 free, 50 free, 100 fly, 200 IM
Arkady Vyathchanin — 200 back, 100 back
Ryosuke Irie — 100 back, 200 back, 100 free, 200 IM
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Minor correction. Penny Oleksiak is scheduled to compete in the 100m backstroke, not the 200 backstroke.
Interview of Clark Smith on the USA swimming website
https://www.usaswimming.org/news-landing-page/2017/04/25/20-question-tuesday-clark-smith
Great line-up. Even if I would have liked to see Regan Smith and Alex Walsh in action.
Great Fabulous line -up . Exciting to see how it unfolds …..
Wonder why Schooling is only swimming one event?
With his Rio 100 free 100 fly, he only needs an update for his 200 fly’s time to qualified for Worlds?
Singapore didn’t have World Trials for them I guess.
maybe because he already qualified for worlds with his 100 fly winning time but has yet to qualify for the 200 fly (which he last swam around a year ago?) and Singapore has no trials (other than the national age group competition which he missed but its more to qualify for sea games) and he said he is swimming all 3 fly event plus relays so he needs to qualify for the 200 but not sure how he’s gonna qualify for the 50
Schooling’s 50 split from his 100 fly in Rio was 23.64. A qualifier for the 50 fly in Budapest is 23.67.
Sweet.
Now, let’s see if he could reach the 200 fly A standard 01:57.28 in next week or not. ;-P
i think he can!!!! looking forward to some fast swims for joe he said he can shock some people in the 200 fly this year after not improving as much as he wanted to the past 6 years (less than 1 second since 2011 whereas his 100 fly has improved about 3 seconds since 2011)
no 1500 free for ledecky?
She’s working on that 400 IM!
She has said numerous times that she uses the 400 IM to practice doubles and to mix things up. She is not swimming this event at Worlds.
Didn’t chase down that Canadian girl left some bitter taste for her.
She won’t let it happen again this time.
Maybe this is what CraigH means “working on it”. lol
Selfishly hoping Smoliga will do 50 back in 50 free(free in heat back in final maybe), I would like to know if her speed in SCY can transfer into LCM.
With Baker leading the backstroke events right now, it is hard too see others can qualified first in whether 100 back and 50 back, that make qualification for 50 back more difficult for Smoliga(unless Baker dropped it).
Shields said he’s kinda regret didn’t sign up 50 free last time, and he entered this time…50 fly in watch!