Dressel and Flickinger Scratch, Regan Smith Remains on Day 1 (HEAT SHEETS)

2019 PHILLIPS 66 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

• July 31 – August 4, 2019
• Avery Aquatics Center, Stanford, CA
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Site
• Psych Sheet
• Results
• Day 1 heat sheets

The first day’s heat sheets for the 2019 USA Swimming National Championships are out, and there are both some glaring absences and some glaring inclusions.

The biggest scratch from the psych sheets on day 1 is one Caeleb Dressel, the swimmer of the meet at the 2019 FINA World Championships. He was entered to swim the 100 free where last week he swam an American Record of 46.96 to win 1 of his 4 individual golds at the meet.

Dressel is expected to swim the rest of the meet. Dressel still has non-Worlds entries in the 200 free, 100 breast, and 200 IM, plus entries in the 50 free and 100 fly. The 100 free was his only day 1 entry.

Also scratching that 100 free is Justin Ress, who swam at the World University Games and won gold in the 50 back and bronze in the 100 back.

There were a number of highly-seeded scratches this week: a trend that we expect to continue throughout the meet and be coupled with prelims no-shows as well. Due to the nature of this meet, and its placement in between a number of high profile national meets, lots of big names will make the decision not to attend, in spite of ‘just in case’ entries.

While Dressel’s absence will deflate the session a little, the hype returns with Regan Smith still on the entry lists in the 200 fly. Smith last week broke World Records in the 200 back and 100 back, with the latter being on a World Record medley relay, in Gwangju. The year-out trials schedule probably robbed her of a few more individual swims, and now we’ll get to see those swims this week it appears.

While all swimmers returning from Gwangju will be battling some jet lag, Smith is only 17 (science shows that jet lag hits younger people less) and all of her races were in the 2nd half of the World Championships, so she won’t have had to drag her taper on quite as long as the rest of Team USA to be fast this week.

Hali Flickinger scratched the race as the top seed after taking silver at Worlds, while bronze medalist Katie Drabot is still entered. Drabot trains at Stanford, where the meet is being held. Her training partner Ella Eastin, who also raced at Worlds, has scratched the 200 fly, however. Many of the Stanford women (Simone Manuel, Katie Ledecky) are not racing, in spite of this being their home pool.

Other High Profile Day 1 Scratches and Non-Scratches

• The 4th seed Chris Wieser has scratched the men’s 1500 free (he wasn’t at Worlds), but top seeded Zane Grothe is still entered. Grothe swam the 400, 800, and 1500 free at Worlds. He final’ed in the 400, but didn’t in the 800 and 1500. In the 1500 specifically, he finished 26th.
• Kelsi Dahlia, Mallory Comerford, and Olivia Smoliga, all fresh off the World Championships, have scratched the 100 free. That’s the #1, #4, and #13 seeds. We know that Dahlia, at least, is in California and intends to swim later in the meet, and Comerford has confirmed to SwimSwam that she will not race this week.
• Jack Conger has scratched as the #3 seed in the 200 fly. He won 2 relay medals (bronze in the 800 free relay and silver in the 400 medley relay) and placed 11th in the individual 100 fly at Worlds. Relay-only Worlds swimmer Jack Levant is entered in the race, as is Australia’s Matt Temple, who was 10th at Worlds in this event.
• Megan Byrnes has scratched the women’s 800 free, where she was seeded 5th. She still has entries in the 400 and 1500 freestyles later in the meet.