While no start lists are out for the 2014 USA Swimming Winter Nationals, USA Swimming today released a list of swimmer expected to compete, and that includes 20 members of the U.S. National Team and at least 6 Olympians.
The meet will also include North Carolina, North Carolina State, Indiana, Louisville, and East Carolina, who will enter significant portions of their college squads.
The two headliners are World Record holder Katie Ledecky and Olympic champion Nathan Adrian. Ledecky will be at the top of our American Record Watch List – she broke the record in the 1650 free in this same meet last season, and with long course Worlds qualification secured a year ahead of time, she’s got plenty of time to rebuild her training toward Kazaan.
With the overlap on the Short Course World Championships, many of the top names will be absent from this meet. That includes internationals residing in the U.S., as this is an open meet, but many of them will be at home representing their native nations.
The meet will be live-streamed in its entirety on the internet and aired taped-delay on NBC on Sunday, December 7th (the day after the meet ends) in a one hour cut package.
See the full press release below.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Olympic gold medalists Nathan Adrian (Bremerton, Wash.) and Katie Ledecky(Bethesda, Md.) are among the more than 800 swimmers expected to compete Dec. 3-6 at USA Swimming’s AT&T Winter National Championships at the Greensboro (N.C.) Aquatic Center.
The meet opens Wednesday, Dec. 3 with a relay-only session at 6 p.m. ET. Thursday, Dec. 4, through Saturday, Dec. 6, prelims will be held at 9 a.m. ET, followed by finals at 5 p.m. ET. Tickets are required for all sessions and can be purchased online now or at the Greensboro Aquatic Center box office during the event.
Expected to join Adrian and Ledecky in the field are fellow U.S. Olympians Andrew Gemmell (Wilmington, Del.), Connor Jaeger (Fair Haven, N.J.) and Cullen Jones (Irvington, N.J.), who trains with SwimMAC Carolina and swam collegiately at North Carolina State, and Micah Lawrence (Pflugerville, Texas) In total, approximately 20 members of the USA Swimming National Team are expected to compete.
Ledecky is the American record holder in the 500-yard and 1650y freestyle events, while Adrian holds the American record in the 50y and 100y freestyle. Ledecky, Gemmell and Jaeger were winners Monday at USA Swimming’s Golden Goggle Awards in New York.
On the local collegiate front, North Carolina, North Carolina State and East Carolina are expected to enter teams in the meet. Other college teams expected to enter large squads include Indiana and Louisville.
A live webcast of the entire meet will be available at usaswimming.org/nationals. NBC will air exclusive television national coverage of the meet Sunday, Dec. 7 from 12:30-1:30 p.m. ET.
Another Big 10 Team – Northwestern – is sending a large group to this meet.
There will be so many absents.
Fortunately Adrian and Ledecky will be there.
And we can expect again some American records from the best female swimmer of the moment.
Long shot swim, but I would love to see a sub 15 min 1650. If any woman will do it, its her!
absentees 🙂