Cesar Cielo Set To Compete For SC Worlds Spot At Jose Finkel Trophy

2018 JOSE FINKEL TROPHY

• August 24th-28th, 2018
• Sao Paolo, Brazil
• 25 SCM pool
• Schedule
• Psych Sheet

The 2018 Jose Finkel Trophy, typically Brazil’s winter-ending National Championship meet, is slated to begin on Friday, August 24th and run through Tuesday, August 28th in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

The meet will be competed in short course meters (25m) and will serve as Brazil’s qualifying meet for the 2018 Short Course World Championships in Hangzhou, China this December.

Most notably, Olympic champion Cesar Cielo will be competing in the 50 free, 100 free, and 50 fly – going all-in for SC Worlds after not competing in the Pan Pacific Championships last week and an uncertain future in the sport beyond this year. He is the top seed in the 50 free, 12th in the 100 free, and 11th seed in the 50 fly. Though, all of the seeded times seem to be in LCM and, for Cielo at least, not lifetime bests.

Other notable competitors include a quartet of sprinters with Etiene Medeiros – gold medalist in the 50 back from last summer’s World Championships in Budapest, Joao Gomes Jr. – silver medalist in the 50 breast from the 2017 Worlds and bronze medalist in the 100 from Pan Pacs last week, 38 year-old Nicholas Santos – silver medalist in the 50 fly from each of the last two World Championships (2015, 2017), and Pedro Spajari who fired off a 46.94 for the fastest split in the field of the 4×100 free relay at last week’s Pan Pacs.

The most notable absentee is Bruno Fratus – arguably Brazil’s biggest swimming star after his silver medal in the 50 free behind Caeleb Dressel at last summer’s Worlds. The 29 year-old, who in June surpassed Cielo for the most sub-22 performances in the 50 LCM free (60), was removed from Brazil’s Pan Pacs roster while nursing a shoulder injury and, thus, will not compete in Sao Paolo.

Last year, Pinheiros swept the combined, men’s, and women’s meets – winning the combined with 2649.5 points over Minas (1921.5), and Unisanta (1751), the men’s with 1065.5 points over Minas (968) and Corinthians (503), and the women’s with 954 points over Unisanta (789) and Minas (513.5).

Athletes who finish top 2 while meeting a qualifying time (seen below) will automatically earn a roster spot. If automatic bids don’t fill 20 roster spots for men and women, the CBDA can invite other athletes based on the top times in Olympic events.

You can read the full explanation of the selection criteria on BestSwimming.br in its original Portuguese here.