2023 BRITISH SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, April 4th – Sunday, April 9th
- Prelims at 9:30 am local (4:30 am EDT)/Finals at 6:00 pm local (1:00 pm EDT)
- Ponds Forge, Sheffield
- LCM (50m)
- World Championships Qualifier
- World Championships Selection Criteria
- Draft Entries
- Live Results
- Livestream
Many of Britain’s fastest swimmers took to the pool on day one of the British Swimming Championships, but only one officially qualified for the 2023 World Championships. Freya Colbert threw down a 4:35.50 in the 400 IM to win gold and undercut the 4:36.00 qualifying standard by half a second.
Colbert was a notable absence in the 200 freestyle earlier on in the session considering her abilities in that event, but the decision to opt for the IM clearly paid off for her. Katie Shanahan was in the lead for the first 200 of this 400 IM, but Colbert made a move on the breaststroke and surged to victory on the back half.
Britain has notably fast qualification standards, faster than the FINA C cuts. The FINA A in the women’s 400 IM for 2023 is a 4:43.06, which Shanahan did clear with her second place swim of 4:36.74. She won’t automatically qualify though as she was 0.74 seconds off the cut. While they have tough standards, Britain also normally adds some names to the roster in events where people miss the selection cuts by narrow margins.
Freya Anderson and James Wilby are another two examples of near-misses who won their events on day one. In the women’s 200 freestyle, Freya Anderson hit a 1:55.89 to get under 1:56.00 for the first time and miss the qualifying standard of 1:55.86. Wilby was a bit off his best in the 100 breaststroke with a 59.94, missing the 58.93 standard by around a second. Considering their histories racing for Britain, it seems likely that they will eventually be added to the team.
Luke Turley and Kieran Bird went 1-2 in the 400 freestyle on day one, hitting a 3:48.31 and 3:48.61, respectively. They were four seconds over the 3:44.06 qualifying standard and also both missed the FINA A. That means that only one of them can race the event in Fukuoka so we will have to wait and see if Turley’s victory was enough to get him selected.
Racing will continue on Wednesday the 5th as athletes take to the men’s 50 breast, 200 fly, q00 back, and the women’s 50 fly, 100 back, 200 breast, and 800 freestyle.
Projected Roster – 2023 World Championships
Women
- Freya Colbert – 400 IM
Not touching McIntosh with these times + she’s a year younger!
Firstly no one said anything about beating Mcintosh and secondly Summer’s 2 years younger than Freya not 1, learn how to do Math.
“British Swimmer qualifies for team”
“Yeah but she won’t win!!!”
95%+ if swimmers who qualify won’t win.
I swear McIntosh seems to have brought out the absolute worst in people and attracted the crazies.
The biggest problem I see with the time standards is the power dynamic between selectors/Head Coach and athletes.
The extreme QTs mean that selection is open to corruption, abuse and secret blacklisting of faces that don’t fit.
British Swimming showing its stupidity again with ridiculous qualifying times. Giving the control to bureaucrats rather than the athletes. Well done!
There’s a lot of disgruntlement at the British swimming selection policy, and I get it. But the bottom line is the program has been more successful since Sweetman started the whole tough move thing, than it ever was before. A complete transformation really.
Sweetenham*
These types of headlines highlight the absurdity of GBR’s Fukuoka standards. What’s the point of even having standards if they fill the roster with swimmers who didn’t make them? I’m no expert in the nuances GBR’s selection procedures but I highly doubt they send a roster of such few athletes, which would be the case by the looks of these results if they strictly adhere to the cuts they previously set.
Yeah… there have been obvious problems for a while but they don’t seem to have any interest in changing them.
If they restricted themselves to the strict QT only then they could end up with a team consisting of only Colbert, Hopkin, Dean, Scott, Guy and Greenbank.
I think the QT are ridiculous but in their slight defence they have basically no budget so they don’t want to pay for any swimmers they don’t have to. I think their yearly budget is about $5m USD which is barely a fraction of the other major swimming nations. But this also creates an environment that doesn’t encourage people to pursue swimming.
I think the primary issue is NOT that they set stringent times but rather:
I have no issue with setting QTs that are more challenging that FINA A marks but rather than just across all events; take into account the relative standards of your swimmers in each event and when/where it is appropriate to set a more challenging (but still realistically achievable) QT and where the FINA mark will be sufficient.
Your point regarding British Swimmings budget is a valid one but it also needs… Read more »
If a swimmer makes standard his/her place on the roster is guaranteed. Otherwise it will be up to coaches/administrators to decide. It’s just some other way of team selection with its pros and cons. The system where expert’s opinion prevails. The question of fairness of selection isn’t that simple and let’s say US way of selection has its own problems as well, when the decision is made by results of one meet only several months prior of season major meet.
That’s why we left the British Empire 247 years ago! No kings or bureaucrats choosing US teams!
Isn’t the USA trials 5 weeks before the major meet?
So the time standards are more severe than not only the FINA a cuts but the Olympic Standards. If someone had to ask me which country in the world would make that the foundation of their selection policy, my immediate answer would be one where they wanted team selection at the entire discretion of the team performance director and it could only be the Brits.