Tom Dean & Chad Le Los No-Show Men’s 200 Free Prelim

2021 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Thursday, December 16th – Tuesday, December 21st
• Etihad Arena, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
• SCM (25m)
• Prize Money
• Meet Site
• Psych Sheet
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Live Results

Day two of these 2021 FINA Short Course World Championships brought one of the most anticipated events of the competition in the form of the men’s 200m freestyle.

Among the entries heading into Abu Dhabi were reigning 2020 Olympic champion Tom Dean of Great Britain and Rio Olympic silver medalist Chad Le Clos of South Africa.

However, both men wound up no-showing their respective heats, leaving us with two fewer viable medalists as we head into tonight’s final.

For Dean, the 21-year-old Bath swimmer already raced the individual 400m free here, placing 15th in a time of 3:42.41. That was a modest performance from the man who ranks as his nation’s 2nd fastest performer of all time.

As for Le Clos, things have fared well through day one, with the Energy Standard man already having reaped 200m butterfly bronze here. The 29-year-old may simply be choosing to focus on the 100m fly over this 200m free, as the field in that pet event are also severely stacked.

This morning in the 1fly Le Clos wound up as the e11th seed with a prelim time of 50.47, about a second off leader Noe Ponti of Switzerland. He’ll be contesting the semi-final this evening in that event.

Going back to Dean, his British partner in crime Duncan Scott is battling a chest infection which saw him uncharacteristically place off the podium in the men’s 200m IM final last night. Here in this 200m, Scott is right in the mix, however, ranking 3rd out of the heats with a time of 1:42.58.

We have no word on whether Dean is sick and he still has the 100m free as his final individual event in addition to relays.