The 2020 ISL champion Cali Condors have released their first five retained swimmers – but league MVP Caeleb Dressel is not among them.
This is the first year of the retention process, so we don’t really have a blueprint for how teams will structure their picks. Each team will ultimately retain up to 15 athletes before the first round of the draft, then fans can vote one more swimmer back onto the team.
But an absence from the team’s announcement of retained swimmers could also suggest that an athlete has withdrawn from the league next season or is planning a break from competition following this summer’s Olympics.
The Condors announced that they’d be retaining butterflyer Kelsi Dahlia, breaststroker Molly Hannis, backstroker/freestyler Justin Ress, back/fly/IM all-arounder Beata Nelson and back/free hybrid Coleman Stewart.
That list is as notable for who is missing as for who is on it. None of Cali’s top four scorers in regular-season points are a part of the first five being retained. That includes #1 overall scorer Dressel, #4 scorer Lilly King (who went nearly two seasons without losing a breaststroke race in the ISL), #5 scorer Olivia Smoliga (a co-captain with Dressel in 2019 and 2020) and #13 scorer Hali Flickinger. Each of those four swimmers scored 146+ individual points, including 277 from Dressel and 228 from King.
Nelson was the #17 regular-season scorer last year, scoring 130 points. Ress was #49, Hannis #59, Dahlia #68 and Stewart #95.
Other key names not yet retained: #56 scorer and newly-crowned Olympian Erika Brown, #65 scorer Radoslaw Kawecki, Olympic sprinter Natalie Hinds, 2019 impact backstroker and 2020 opt-out Mitch Larkin and top breaststroker Nic Fink, who missed half the regular season but played a key role in Cali’s playoff run.
DRAFT/PLAYER RETENTION RULES
First, a quick refresher on personnel rules, as announced by the league:
Each team can retain up to 16 swimmers from their 2020 rosters across six different rounds of retention:
- 5 pre-selected athletes to retain
- 4 athletes announced in round 1 of retention
- 3 athletes announced in round 2 of retention
- 2 athletes announced in round 3 of retention
- 1 athlete announced in round 4 of retention
- 1 athlete voted on by fans (this round of retention comes after the first round of the ISL draft, though)
After that, players not retained will fall to the ISL Draft Pool, where the Aqua Centurions and DC Trident will each have a first-round pick. The Draft Pool will include unretained players, but also ISL rookies, like NCAA graduates and other new ISL additions.
with a few exception, swimmers going to Olympics seem to not be in this first round of announcement… not sure if it is because the swimmers have concern about timing and potential PR obligation post-Olympics, or just for dramatic effect.
I think itd be dramatic effect… nothing is better in our sport than saying Olympic Gold Medalist so I’m sure theyre saving that angle for later announcements
Well, I think there are a lot of Olympic swimmers within the first 5 of NY Breakers, Energy Standard and Iron, also thought London had a few. Just these 5 from Cali seem a bit less Olympic orientated 😉
Does anything happen in between rounds? Or is it just an attempt to dramatize the wait for new swimmers to be announced?
The ISL should just have the GM’s announce the 15 swimmers and accept that everyone is more interested in the remaining Trials and the lead up to the Tokyo games at this point in time.
If they’re thinking that fortune favors the bold, it may be that they retain their #2-#16 scorers and trust the fans to vote Caeleb back in.
I will absolutely be sabotaging this and voting their lowest ranked athlete. If you play with fire you will get burned.
It is crazy to think Olympic athletes want to get right back into swimming and not take a break! I think for the long term health of the athletes, the ISL is doing harm in asking them to swim and compete this soon after the Games!
I don’t think there will be much interest (or should be) in ISL this year. Most super stars will bypass the whole thing! And good for them!
Hey, it’s only 3 years to the non-asterisk Games, so usual lolly-gagging for a year or two after the Olympics are not in play. Plus, they’re theoretically getting paid. Also, way too many exclamation points.
You think Dressel cares about $15k Or any of the stars? Covid shutdown a year out didn’t affect these stars so taking a sanity and physical break 3 years out is not going to hurt!
at the same time, for swimming to get out of attention-only-in-Olympics, ISL /regular season is needed. Even though not all stars will swim but I hope it is still going to be an exciting season. Without swimming at Olympics, some of the swimmers may swim some fast time.
it will have a different kind of drama to not have all the stars in the regular season/matches (team depth), and bust out the stars for semi and final for team title.
These retained swimmer are all missing the OG this summer if i’m correct, that’s what I love about ISL. USA has huge talents besides its olympic team
To make this League more interesting they need big moves on big names like in other pro leagues. I want to read about the big bomb when DC trident signs Dressel and stuff like that!
16 retained swimmers from each team since last season won’t create much drama/excitement…
speaking facts. Or if, imagine, a blockbuster trade happened in front of our faces that blow up Twitter and the SwimSwam comments?
Sjöström to Frog Kings 1 hour before mid season trade deadline, NHL style
Dress trade request or he sits out the season. 🙂
Have the swimmers been paid for last season yet??
If you notice the big time swimmers aren’t committing yet so maybe not
While I found watching the ISL last year compelling, fun, and brought new interest to swimming, I can’t understand if fans are meant to primarily follow teams or individual swimmers. Dressel, King and all the other stars are great to watch, no matter who they swim for, and I don’t particularly care which team wins, or who is on which team. The fact that swimmers get paid based on their individual results seems to reinforce that the focus is primarily on individuals, not on teams. But this draft/retention policy seems to redraw the focus on teams, not swimmers.
I think ideally you’re supposed to focus on teams but the payment system based on individual results incentivizes the swimmers to do their best at every meet