2024 AQUATICS GB SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS (OLYMPIC TRIALS)
- Tuesday, April 2nd – Sunday, April 7th
- Prelims at 10 am local (5 am EDT), Finals at 7 pm local (2 pm EDT)
- London Aquatics Centre
- LCM (50m)
- British Swimming Olympic Selection Policy
- Meet Central
- SwimSwam Preview
- Entries
- Prelims: Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap/Day 4 Recap/Day 5 Recap/Day 6 Recap
- Finals: Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap/Day 4 Recap/Day 5 Recap
- Results
- Livestream: Channel 4 YouTube coverage
We entered the final day of the 2024 Aquatics GB Swimming Championships (Olympic Trials) and the women’s 100m free is among the main events lined up for tonight.
23-year-old Freya Anderson appeared in the heats this morning, despite having said that participation at these trials was doubtful.
We reported how Anderson’s social media on March 26th read, “At the start of this year, after repetitive bouts of illness, I was diagnosed with glandular fever, which meant I had to pull back from training and our team camp in Australia.
“This was not how I envisioned the start of the Olympic year, but I had to listen to my body and put my health and recovery first, something I’ve found extremely hard to do throughout my career.”
Anderson was absent from the 200m free earlier at this competition but raced her way to the 3rd seed in the 100m, clocking a time of 55.01. Anna Hopkin took the top spot in 53.68 followed by Eva Okaro in 54.60.
The women will be battling for individual Olympic qualification as well as for 4x100m free relay qualification.
Per the Aquatics GB selection policy, the first-place finisher must meet a time of 53.55 to make the grade and the top 4 women need to beat a collective mark of 3:36.40 for a relay berth.
We’ve reported how the Aquatics GB High-Performance Director Chris Spice and Head Coach Bill Furniss can discretionarily pick swimmers onto the Olympic roster outside of those who qualified with bonafide standards.
Anderson’s participation in the 100m free most likely had the purpose of proving her form in the hopes of gaining a spot on the lineup which has a max number of 30.
As it stands right now, 14 swimmers have finished first and earned a QT. An additional 5 swimmers outside of those have qualified in relays. Then, 4 more swimmers finished 2nd in their event and still beat the QT, making their case for possible selection.
That means 23 swimmers of the 30 have most likely earned their Olympic slots with one finals session remaining.
