The 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials cuts were released on Thursday (view them here). They are faster than the 2016 cuts in every single event. But how tough are they? Should we expect a smaller meet than in the past or will America’s swimmers rise to this challenge? First we need to establish a base line for what a typical trials looks like.
In 2016 there were an average of 129 women on the psych sheet in each event with an average of 120 swimmers actually putting up a time in prelims. This was down from 2012 when an average of 141 women were entered in each event with 132 actually swimming.
The men’s numbers were similar. In 2016 an average of 124 men per event were on the psych sheet with an average of 113 actually swimming in prelims. This was also down from 2012 where there were 136 men per event entered with 126 men per event swimming prelims.
Women
| 2016 | 2012 | |||||
| Actually Swam | Qualified | % That Swam | Actually Swam | Qualified | % That Swam | |
| 50 Free | 178 | 186 | 96% | 154 | 164 | 94% |
| 100 Free | 100 | 105 | 95% | 131 | 136 | 96% |
| 200 Free | 105 | 119 | 88% | 99 | 115 | 86% |
| 400 Free | 101 | 109 | 93% | 113 | 117 | 97% |
| 800 Free | 80 | 89 | 90% | 65 | 71 | 92% |
| 100 Back | 155 | 168 | 92% | 162 | 167 | 97% |
| 200 Back | 133 | 143 | 93% | 186 | 196 | 95% |
| 100 Breast | 123 | 125 | 98% | 152 | 153 | 99% |
| 200 Breast | 123 | 125 | 98% | 118 | 133 | 89% |
| 100 Fly | 134 | 141 | 95% | 161 | 167 | 96% |
| 200 Fly | 95 | 103 | 92% | 130 | 144 | 90% |
| 200 IM | 110 | 132 | 83% | 113 | 129 | 88% |
| 400 IM | 119 | 138 | 86% | 125 | 136 | 92% |
Men
| 2016 | 2012 | |||||
| Actually Swam | Qualified | % That Swam | Actually Swam | Qualified | % That Swam | |
| 50 Free | 165 | 177 | 93% | 167 | 179 | 93% |
| 100 Free | 88 | 98 | 90% | 165 | 176 | 94% |
| 200 Free | 105 | 115 | 91% | 124 | 136 | 91% |
| 400 Free | 103 | 112 | 92% | 111 | 123 | 90% |
| 1500 Free | 97 | 101 | 96% | 91 | 96 | 95% |
| 100 Back | 183 | 192 | 95% | 127 | 133 | 95% |
| 200 Back | 109 | 123 | 89% | 107 | 113 | 95% |
| 100 Breast | 135 | 147 | 92% | 139 | 144 | 97% |
| 200 Breast | 98 | 106 | 92% | 129 | 134 | 96% |
| 100 Fly | 133 | 141 | 94% | 122 | 130 | 94% |
| 200 Fly | 81 | 87 | 93% | 134 | 145 | 92% |
| 200 IM | 89 | 107 | 83% | 116 | 133 | 87% |
| 400 IM | 92 | 100 | 92% | 109 | 120 | 91% |
The qualification period hasn’t started yet- it opens November 28th- so we can’t look at how many swimmers have qualified so far. We can look at how the new cuts would have limited older fields of swimmers.
How Many People Had Each Cut on the Psych Sheet
Women
| 2020 Cut | 2016 Cut | |||
| 2012 Trials | 2016 Trials | 2012 Trials | 2016 Trials | |
| 50 Free | 61 | 96 | 90 | 186 |
| 100 Free | 44 | 80 | 52 | 105 |
| 200 Free | 59 | 74 | 73 | 119 |
| 400 Free | 60 | 77 | 73 | 109 |
| 800 Free | 50 | 68 | 66 | 89 |
| 100 Back | 44 | 74 | 82 | 168 |
| 200 Back | 33 | 60 | 94 | 143 |
| 100 Breast | 65 | 88 | 84 | 125 |
| 200 Breast | 53 | 73 | 92 | 125 |
| 100 Fly | 45 | 78 | 67 | 141 |
| 200 Fly | 60 | 85 | 71 | 103 |
| 200 IM | 41 | 68 | 85 | 132 |
| 400 IM | 67 | 65 | 111 | 138 |
Men
| 2020 Cut | 2016 Cut | |||
| 2012 Trials | 2016 Trials | 2012 Trials | 2016 Trials | |
| 50 Free | 64 | 120 | 94 | 177 |
| 100 Free | 47 | 74 | 63 | 98 |
| 200 Free | 35 | 56 | 66 | 115 |
| 400 Free | 51 | 70 | 83 | 112 |
| 1500 Free | 50 | 78 | 77 | 101 |
| 100 Back | 40 | 85 | 80 | 192 |
| 200 Back | 38 | 85 | 60 | 123 |
| 100 Breast | 43 | 93 | 55 | 147 |
| 200 Breast | 52 | 77 | 56 | 106 |
| 100 Fly | 37 | 58 | 72 | 141 |
| 200 Fly | 31 | 57 | 53 | 87 |
| 200 IM | 37 | 60 | 60 | 107 |
| 400 IM | 48 | 63 | 59 | 100 |
In the 2012 Trials qualification period an average of 80 women and 68 men achieved the 2016 Trials cut. For 2016, 129 women and 124 men per event acually qualified.
Looking at the 2020 cuts, the women in 2016 were a bit behind their 2012 pace with and average of 76 women per achieving the 2020 cut during 2016 Trials qualification. The men were ahead of their 2012 pace with 75 men per event making the 2020 cut for the 2016 Trials.
This would indicate the 2020 cuts are approximately no more or less difficult than they were in the past for top swimmers. The field as a whole is about in line relative to the cuts with where it was in the past. This would indicate that USA Swimming is happy with the size that Trials have been in the past and are looking to maintain the meet as is. In 2016 that meant 822 women and 915 men who appeared on the psych sheet. In 2012 there were 902 women and 930 men. 800-950 men and women is probably a reasonable expectation for 2020 trials.
Late to the party here, but I think it’s worth taking a look at how uniformly spread the folks making these cuts are across the different parts of the country. Yes, they seem to be able to ratchet up the level of performance but that I suspect is being driven by programmatic changes. I’m not saying that’s bad, but it’s worth investigating because my intuition might be wrong. It’s long been the case that if you have a prospect who is showing the potential to play pro tennis, for example, you have to more to Florida to play year round at an academy “high school”. Now it seems to be the case that you used to have a small number… Read more »
Andrew, I’m a long time reader and normally love your analyses. But this analysis seems fairly short-sided. It fails to recognize the impact of the shortened qualifying window (only 1 summer worth of championship meets vs 2) and simply looks at events and projects rather than looking at total number of qualifiers.
Shortening the qualifying window would have decreased the number of athletes in 2016 to about 1550. In addition, considering only about 860 athletes would have qualified for 2020 Trials over the past 20 months, it seems hard to believe that number will grow to 1800 in 2 years. Sure, athletes will rise to the occasion, but these cuts seem much tougher than 2016 and 2012.
The main reason I was willing to ignore the shortened qualifying window was that winter nationals this year are long course. In 2014 winter nationals were yards and the qualifying window included summer nationals. Winter nationals is less of a big deal than summer national to many of the swimmers in the trials athlete pool, many of whom are in the middle of college season, but it’s still an opportunity for some swimmers to get cuts.
I’m interested to see how it plays out. Maybe you’re right. We’ll find out in a year and a half.
Also I would have loved to have included a longer spectrum of data points, but the next trials back was 2008, and I try… Read more »
I don’t understand the comments . Looks like definitely fewer competitors making the cut. Eg mens 200 free has 115 making the 2016 time but only 56 making the 2020 time . Isn’t that approximately half? Or am I reading it incorrectly ? ( I know that’s only one event )
The men’s 200 free shows 66 swimmers from 2012 would’ve made the 2016 cut, but the reality was 115 men ended up with the 2016 qualifying time.
Therefore if the trend continues and 56 swimmers from 2016 would’ve made the 2020 cut, we can expect approx 98-100 to make the 2020 qualifying time.
66/115 is approx the same percentage as 56/98.
thanks
Cuts are too easy. Way too easy.
Lol k
How many cuts do you have?
I thought they wanted to reduce the number of contestants?
If that is their goal, then the cuts they set are inconsistent with that goal.
I wonder if they think that the shorter qualifying period will impact the number of swimmers. Sorry if you’ve already done this, but is there any data on how many swimmers would not have been able to participate in previous trials if the shorter period had been in effect?
Pretty tough.