2021 BRITISH SWIMMING SELECTION TRIALS
- Wednesday, April 14th – Sunday, April 18th
- Prelims at 10am local/Finals at 7pm local
- London Aquatics Centre
- British Olympic Selection Policy
- Primary Olympic Selection Meet (not only opportunity)
- Entries
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap/Day 4 Recap
- Live Stream
- Live Results
Entering the final day of competition of the 2021 British Swimming Selection Trials, 23 Brits have cleared the nation’s stiff Olympic qualification standards. This morning at the London Aquatic Centre, the prelims of the women’s 100 breast, men’s 200 back, women’s 50 free, and men’s 200 free took place. The fastest-seeded heats of the men’s and women’s 1500 free will start off tonight’s finals session at 7pm British time.
Day 5 Prelims Highlights
Highlighting the session was the final event of the morning, the men’s 200 free, were five Brits swam under the Olympic qualification standard of 1:46.99, setting up a dogfight for the top two individual Olympic spots and the remaining top four relay spots. Leading the event was pre-selected Olympian Duncan Scott, hitting 1:46.41 at the wall after picking up British titles in the 200 IM and 100 free. Behind him was a quartet of Bath NC swimmers: Thomas Dean (1:46.68), Matt Richards (1:46.73), James Guy (1:46.77), and Calum Jarvis (1:46.89). Loughborough brothers Joe Litchfield (1:47.14) and Max Litchfield (1:47.93) also qualified into the final along with Stirling’s Cameron Kurle (1:47.19).
Along with Scott, Richards (100 free), Guy (100/200 fly), J. Litchfield (200 IM), and M. Litchfield (400 IM) have swam under Britain’s Olympic qualifying standards while Dean and Jarvis have just cleared the 200 free standards and Kurle is a mere two-tenths off the cut. Unfortunately, not every swimmer will be selected to the 2021 Olympic team tonight, so placing will be crucial in tonight’s final.
Kicking off the morning was the women’s 100 breast, where Loughborough teammates Sarah Vasey (1:07.03) and Molly Renshaw (1:07.26) were the only two swimmers to break 1:08 in prelims. Both Vasey and Renshaw will need to swim under 1:06.79 to be considered for the 100 breast on the Tokyo Olympic team.
Also qualifying for the women’s 100 breast final for Loughborough were Abbie Wood (1:08.76) and Jocelyn Ulyett (1:09.04) along with Winchester teammates Kayla van der Merwe (1:08.86) and Imogen Clark (1:09.88). Both Renshaw and Wood have cleared the 200 breast selection standard of 2:23.37 earlier in the meet.
More Loughborough swimmers, Luke Greenbank (1:56.95) and Elliot Clogg (1:58.42), took top seeds in the men’s 200 back. Greenbank was a mere 0.35s off the British selection standard (1:56.60), yet has already pre-qualified for Tokyo in this event. Teammate Charlie Brown finished in third this morning at 1:59.03 while Stirling’s Craig McNally rounded out the sub-2:00 times at 1:59.97.
After nabbing the Olympic qualifying cut in the 100 free, Arkansas alum Anna Hopkin of Loughborough took the women’s 50 free prelims top time at 24.81, just two-tenths off the 24.60 cut. Rounding out the top three times of the morning were Brompton’s Isabella Hindley (25.26) and Edinburgh’s Lucy Hope (25.46).
COMMON JIMMY GUY
The standards internationally seem really random. In men’s 200 free the british standard is slower than the german standard although GB is much better in this event, on the other hand their standard in women’s 400 free is clearly faster than the german standard, although they are clearly worse in this event. I also find it interesting that apparently british universities have recruited international swimmers (Hansson, Auböck, Vazaios, Wattel) recently to strengthen their training groups.
I’m just realizing how young British swimming is. Looking at the DOB for each swimmer that swam the women’s 50m freestyle, I realized I’m now older than every person that was entered into the event (earliest DOB is 1996). Don’t think I’ve ever seen that before at an Olympic trials meet.
I feel the same. Only names like Castelli, McNally, Jarvis are older than me now, and I’m effectively the same age as them compared to the young guys coming through.
Same – I’m a 1995 baby and would say I feel pretty young in most areas of life but certainly not looking at the start lists for this week!
Can’t wait for this 200 free! I think Guy and Dean are gonna go for it early, hold on until 150 and then Scott and Richards will overtake to take the individuals.
British Championship team as deep as it gets in the 200 free… if Sam Dailley hadn’t been out this season with coronavirus, they’d have another sub 1:48 leg easily.
I’m going to assume you’re his family because a 1:55 doesn’t suggest in anyway he would be able to keep up with anywhere near those times. Your claim would be that someone could “easily” drop 8 seconds of their pb between the ages of 17/18 to 19/20.
I’m going to assume you know absolutely nothing about swimming. Obviously you’ve never heard of an improvement curve. Maybe go back to soccer Jess.
What do we think the 4×200 team will be? Can any other nation beat the GB team?
I think it’ll be Scott, Guy, Dean, Richards
I assume they’ll take the top 6? And then rest whoever swims individual in relay heats? Or Richards and Scott because 100m freestyle heats same day as relay heats? Either way I am PERCHED and READY
Salivating.
Fingers crossed they go out for it and don’t get caught up watching eachother 🤞🏻
With Guy in the race there is at least someone who is going to “go out for it.”
I reckon he’ll go out sub 51 if not sub 50.
Part of me hopes the piano in the 200 fly taught him a lesson. Part of me also wants to see a race with multiple different racing strategies.
I think he split 50.9 both times he went 1.45.1, so somewhere around 51 sounds about right if he’s going after it.
They definitely got caught watching each other, but it was while going sub 1.45.2 for like 3 swimmers